Eris regularly "blesses" me with things. In fact, I've found reality much more sane since I realized that all the weird, unplanned, unexplainable, "3 AM OMGZ the network came down" phone calls are all the fault of the Great Bitch in Limbo.

Q: Why did the electrician turn off the backup power box (which was across the server room) instead of the main box which was offline and waiting for a new part? A: Cause Eris is a bitch.

Eris regularly "blesses" me with things. In fact, I've found reality much more sane since I realized that all the weird, unplanned, unexplainable, "3 AM OMGZ the network came down" phone calls are all the fault of the Great Bitch in Limbo.

Q: Why did the electrician turn off the backup power box (which was across the server room) instead of the main box which was offline and waiting for a new part? A: Cause Eris is a bitch.

Eris regularly "blesses" me with things. In fact, I've found reality much more sane since I realized that all the weird, unplanned, unexplainable, "3 AM OMGZ the network came down" phone calls are all the fault of the Great Bitch in Limbo.

Q: Why did the electrician turn off the backup power box (which was across the server room) instead of the main box which was offline and waiting for a new part? A: Cause Eris is a bitch.

Q: Why did he do it at 3:00 AM?A: See previous answer. :lulz:

Don't blame that shit on Eris.

Oh its her fault, no doubt about it. See there was some 'confusion' over the schematics given to the electrician... and we all know whose responsible for Confusion. :lulz:

Eris regularly "blesses" me with things. In fact, I've found reality much more sane since I realized that all the weird, unplanned, unexplainable, "3 AM OMGZ the network came down" phone calls are all the fault of the Great Bitch in Limbo.

Q: Why did the electrician turn off the backup power box (which was across the server room) instead of the main box which was offline and waiting for a new part? A: Cause Eris is a bitch.

Q: Why did he do it at 3:00 AM?A: See previous answer. :lulz:

Don't blame that shit on Eris.

Oh its her fault, no doubt about it. See there was some 'confusion' over the schematics given to the electrician... and we all know whose responsible for Confusion. :lulz:

I thought having a cranky bitch goddess that you can blame all the shit that blindsides us on was the entire point of this religion?!

No, that's Christianity.

Yeah, but christianity requires that you trust that all the horrible shit is ultimately for the greater good, which requires more effort of faith in that you have to believe against the prima fascie truth that the goddess does this shit just for yuks...

I thought having a cranky bitch goddess that you can blame all the shit that blindsides us on was the entire point of this religion?!

No, that's Christianity.

Yeah, but christianity requires that you trust that all the horrible shit is ultimately for the greater good, which requires more effort of faith in that you have to believe against the prima fascie truth that the goddess does this shit just for yuks...

No, there's also the whole "the devil made me do it" routine, beloved of hypocritical Baptists and Calvinists.

I thought having a cranky bitch goddess that you can blame all the shit that blindsides us on was the entire point of this religion?!

No, that's Christianity.

Yeah, but christianity requires that you trust that all the horrible shit is ultimately for the greater good, which requires more effort of faith in that you have to believe against the prima fascie truth that the goddess does this shit just for yuks...

No, there's also the whole "the devil made me do it" routine, beloved of hypocritical Baptists and Calvinists.

yeah, that was all to complicated. so i moved to discordianism where you can just shrug your shoulders and laugh aloofly...

I thought having a cranky bitch goddess that you can blame all the shit that blindsides us on was the entire point of this religion?!

No, that's Christianity.

Yeah, but christianity requires that you trust that all the horrible shit is ultimately for the greater good, which requires more effort of faith in that you have to believe against the prima fascie truth that the goddess does this shit just for yuks...

No, there's also the whole "the devil made me do it" routine, beloved of hypocritical Baptists and Calvinists.

yeah, that was all to complicated. so i moved to discordianism where you can just shrug your shoulders and laugh aloofly...

When Eris causes problems, civilizations die.

I can't see her being interested in one electrician that can't read a print, or one manager that can't communicate.

Except infinitely more varied. There are only so many times Charlie can invite a gang of savages around your place and play games with cleavers and limbs until it gets...well, not boring exactly, but expected.

Ok.... Whilst drinking a glass of Dr Pepper, I thought "why not try this, just for the hell of it?" Guess what happened? 22 Feb. 2010 at 5:05pm GMT My supper caught on fire. A gorgeous beef roast, with carrots and potatoes. It was cooking away nicely, and I went into the kitchen to check on it to find the kitchen full of smoke. Opened the oven door and saw flames. Freaked out, grabbed the roasting tray, placed it on the counter top and covered it with a larger pan to put out the flames. >_>

Bah, thats not a fire. Once I had been up all night and decided to make prawn crackers for breakfast, and not only did the oil catch on fire in the saucepan, it then got sucked up into the extractor fan, causing that to die, but not before spitting flames across the ceiling and scorching everything within five foot.

That's a kitchen fire.

Its amazing I got a job where I cook food, really. Or am allowed to handle sharp objects.

yeah, that is a very good kitchen fire. But this is the first time I've had anything that was cooked in the oven catch on fire. I mean, frying things in oil on a burner, the chances of a fire is fairly high. But in an electric oven set to 180 C? Plus it had only been in there for 3/4's of an hour. Still, it tastes rather good! :D

i think Eris has been playing with me since i decided to have her image itched into my skin. I haven't done it yet, and i think this has made her drive me mad. and i think i am doomed until she is on my arm or thigh or foot.

As I was walking to train station some crazed man started talking to me :(

He said "The tellaroys from 103.2 are gonna get you and they're going to come to your house if they catch you. C ya babe"

and I was like :?

Then my t-shirt started to smell! Cause as I was cleaning up I think I put one of my stinky tshirts before liike a few days ago and now my Jackson 5 Tshirt smells like weird B.O! But I get to blame Eris for this cause I had to do an emergency clean up and I wasn't thinking :oops:

And earlier today I got a random SMS from an old time aquantance to go out to dinner tonight, but I don't think I can :(

Then when I come into the office, I find out I can't fucking concetrate cause they're hammering away hardcore in my area cause they are installing walls or someshit!

But I'm willing to give it a shot. I haven't left the house yet today so nothing has had a chance to happen. Other than Mario calling me, and having a falling-out then an unfalling-out with a friend I'm worried about.

It will be funny if I can ingrain into myself a habit of saying "Surprise me, Eris!" first thing in the morning, as I have developed a habit of waking myself up either singing or accidentally shouting. It'll be great when/if I ever spend the night with anyone again. "SURPRISE ME, ERIS!"

-witnessed a near-physical fight between two very old Italian women today on the bus. They were practically clawing at each other. Now that I think about it, maybe they weren't Italian... maybe they were Greek?

-witnessed a near-physical fight between two very old Italian women today on the bus. They were practically clawing at each other. Now that I think about it, maybe they weren't Italian... maybe they were Greek?

one was greek, one was italian. they were arguing about who invented what...

Oh on train ride home yesterday, I got onto a carriage and before my eyes, a lady was in a massive sob of tears ... I got annoyed cause no one went up to her, she was in shock - someone had punched her pretty hard in the mouth, poor thing even had a black tooth.

I tried to calm her down but she kept saying she's ok and then she told me to be honest with her and if there was anything loose in her mouth, so she opened her mouth and I saw a pretty funky looking tooth, so I told her yes and that I'd go grab the guard atleast they know first-aid you should get you checked out - cause she was bruising on the face reallly bad.

But she seemed pretty scared and said No I'm ok and ran off at the next station. (I asked her where she was supposed to get off and it was muh further away) I asked another passenger - Who just sat there watching her cry, what happened and she wouldn't tell me anything :argh!: Fuck people just love being inactive don't they?

I hope someone managed to calm her down, I didn't know how to handle the situation - I tried asking her what happened, is she hurt anywhere else, where is she getting off at, does she want to call anyone etc;

Well, thus far today, someone going by the moniker of "troll king" has become incensed about the fact that I have a RAW ebook PDF on my server, and endevoured to tell the webmaster (me) on me. He actually went through with it, sending me an email about it. Also, a veteran bummed $0.75 off me and asked me if I was "avant-guarde".

23/2/10 (fuck your weird American date thingy. (it should be in some order, either long/shorter/shortest or short/longer/longest))

i said 'Verras me Eris!' and promptly got a call from temp agency asking if i could work an evening shift, since i was low on monies and didn't even have enough to pay rent/insurance this month i promptly said YES.20 minutes later i am at the ATM for grocery money and checked how much money i would need to borrow (to pay rent) only to find out i had 40 euros more than i needed for rent/insurance (YAY!).After work an acquaintance got on my bus who didn't have enough cash to pay the busfare so i helped him out (good deed, felt good about myself) who in return insisted on giving me 2 Heineken (YAY BEER).

Oh, and my guarana tea made me tired instead of active.

Also,Nick Davies (http://www.flatearthnews.net/) was in the newspaper, bitching at the lack of sourcechecking in newspapers and the paper didnt check any alternate sources about what he was saying.

Well, just as I was demoing something for a professor last night it was discovered that all the things that worked were broken (in an unusual way) and all the things that were broken instead worked -- the intro cutscene would play despite not having the proper codecs, but despite the code it was skipped on start, and on load for the first room the player character was dragged down through all the maps until it went off the screen -- a bug I haven't seen before.

I got a B in chemestry! I just couldn't believe it! Haven't studied in the last six months, just did a very good job covering it up. The teacher gave us a test covering the last six months', I answered completely random and got a B! It sure as hell surprised me.

I had a brief but vivid flashback to the time when I invoked the WOMP-masters of old, and I managed to hold back "-and do your worst!". I'm not particularly superstitious, but.... :tinfoilhat:

Not much yet. I did have a discussion on the feasibility of the Global Flood (Noah and the Ark, etc) this morning that was a complete mirror image of one that I'm currently having online. I asked the guy what all those animals ate while they were on the Ark, and he said "Manna" with a completely straight face. :lulz:

My buddy Alan was trying to convince us all he had this great super power - complete veracity. Everything he said was true. Luckily, he limited himself to only saying obvious things like, "The fridge is white" and "there are four of us."

Then my roomie Mike challenged him to say something which would benefit us.

Alan said, "Okay... Cram has $20 he owes you."

And then I realized that the day before yesterday, another mutual friend had given me twenty bucks which he owed Mike. I put the money in my wallet and forgot about it until alan used his super power.

so I handed mike the twenty and everybody was fucking flabbergasted.

okay well it's not THAT weird, but you did surprise me, Eris. And that was only Day 1.

Nothing weird so far :( Maybe Eris is saving it for when I go down into Melbourne? :D

I did have a whacked out dream.

I was being hunted by black people, so I ran into the Toilet and put on the KKK uniform then they screamed with terror and ran off, then I ran off and met a lady who asked me to make a site for her I told her to fuck off - it turns out it was some lady I was annoying from before and I gave her fake name, so after that I started to pretend to be some dead guy and tried to dispell someones believes then I found out my friends were sleeping with each other.

I asked Eris to surprise me this morning and got to work to find an email from the boss saying that we weren't allowed on Facebook or forums during our work hours any longer. It also said that the IT guy had installed special monitoring software to make sure we didn't and those who attempted to bypass this would be in TROUBLE.

I'm the only IT guy.

I'm interested to see how my afternoon/evening goes. I'm planning on hitch-hiking to a concert.

Yeah, it's a small office, so I'm sure I'd have noticed if he was in here with me.I replied only with "Whut?"There's no new software here. I'd know about that, too, because they don't know how to use a torrent.Yeah. All the software at my office is pirated...

24 Feb 2010.... The day was going rather well but then DUN DUN DUUUNNNN!! I found that my "wonderful" ex (the one that took the £800 worth of games and stuff out of my house) has sold them all on ebay - even though he was told not to sell them by the police. Thank you, Eris. This better turn out good, or else it's like rubbing salt into the wounds. -_-

I asked Eris to surprise me this morning and got to work to find an email from the boss saying that we weren't allowed on Facebook or forums during our work hours any longer. It also said that the IT guy had installed special monitoring software to make sure we didn't and those who attempted to bypass this would be in TROUBLE.

I'm the only IT guy.

I'm interested to see how my afternoon/evening goes. I'm planning on hitch-hiking to a concert.

24 Feb 2010.... The day was going rather well but then DUN DUN DUUUNNNN!! I found that my "wonderful" ex (the one that took the £800 worth of games and stuff out of my house) has sold them all on ebay - even though he was told not to sell them by the police. Thank you, Eris. This better turn out good, or else it's like rubbing salt into the wounds. -_-

24 Feb 2010.... The day was going rather well but then DUN DUN DUUUNNNN!! I found that my "wonderful" ex (the one that took the £800 worth of games and stuff out of my house) has sold them all on ebay - even though he was told not to sell them by the police. Thank you, Eris. This better turn out good, or else it's like rubbing salt into the wounds. -_-

Wrong goddes for good results. she only does that when that fucks with your head more than bad results would entertain her.

I locked my keys in my Jeep and didn't realize it until after work. An entire commuter bus watched me climb through the back window. Surprise, surprise! The police showed up while I was straightening up in my seat but I was in uniform and flashed them my keys so they didn't hassle me. :)

To be honest I leave my keys in my Jeep about once a quarter so it wasn't that surprising. :|

24 Feb 2010.... The day was going rather well but then DUN DUN DUUUNNNN!! I found that my "wonderful" ex (the one that took the £800 worth of games and stuff out of my house) has sold them all on ebay - even though he was told not to sell them by the police. Thank you, Eris. This better turn out good, or else it's like rubbing salt into the wounds. -_-

Have you told the police?

Yup! The detective sargent in charge of the case is supposed to ring me tomorrow. This might get totally insane before it's over. :3

And Eris may be the wrong goddess, but you know it's not going to be boring when she does things. :P

24 Feb 2010.... The day was going rather well but then DUN DUN DUUUNNNN!! I found that my "wonderful" ex (the one that took the £800 worth of games and stuff out of my house) has sold them all on ebay - even though he was told not to sell them by the police. Thank you, Eris. This better turn out good, or else it's like rubbing salt into the wounds. -_-

Have you told the police?

Yup! The detective sargent in charge of the case is supposed to ring me tomorrow. This might get totally insane before it's over. :3

And Eris may be the wrong goddess, but you know it's not going to be boring when she does things. :P

Surprise Me, Eris Part 2 -Hitchhiking to a concert: A friend told me they could drive me as far as a city 2 hours away from me. That sounded convenient so I organised to meet up with them. To get out of this city, I need to walk about 2 hours and start hitching from there. Everywhere else is expressway and if you are seen walking on that, the police pick you up and take you all the way back to the beginning. It's like snakes and ladders. Friend is going to be an hour and a half late picking me up now because his car broke down. Thank you, Eris. You better be good to me after that, because then I have a ride to this other city which is surrounded in impossible to hitch out of motorways and need to work something out there.

If I start walking and hitch-hiking now, I'll still not get out of here faster than if I waited for my friend.Waiting for friend, I get to a city which will be an enormous mission to get out of and I end up trying to get out of there in rush hour traffic.It's also raining rather heavily here and apparently there as well if the internets weather has the troof.

I'm going to end up standing in the rain in the middle of nowhere trying to get a lift.This is what happens when you crash all the vehicles you own.

Yeah, it's a small office, so I'm sure I'd have noticed if he was in here with me.I replied only with "Whut?"There's no new software here. I'd know about that, too, because they don't know how to use a torrent.Yeah. All the software at my office is pirated...

So either your boss eventually gives you the software and you can start demanding tribute from your co-workers or your boss doesn't give you the software and you use that information to blackmail him. Sounds like a win/win to me. Either way you have leverage.

I suddenly decided to be social at the office and started speaking to people from the other departments, then the random chick gave me a hypothetical and said if I was desperate for cash would I ask her, I said no :? Now she's angry at me :? ... (Also I think I could easily fall for one person there, just gotta find out if he swings that way :x)

So, my boyfriend asked me to go to the Baltimore comedy club to see Mick Foley and Colt Cabana, two wrestlers. The show was pretty good. I went outside while the bf went to have his picture taken with Foley. When I walked out there were police cars everywhere and a helicopter with the searchlight going. I walk into the 7/11 to buy cigarettes. Two drunk chicks were screaming at each other by the milk. The owner yells at the one acting ill to vomit outside. Some guy jiggles the drunks girl's boobs and just walks out. She gave no indication that she noticed him and promptly puked all over the refrigerators. I walked back out and one of the guys working at the comedy club gave me a dozen or so of the free tickets for shows coming up in the next month or so. It was a pretty fun night for a Wednesday.

Boss: As you know work is a little scarce right now…Me: :| Hopefully it will pick up again. Boss: It won’t be anytime soon.Me: :sad:Boss: There’s a position that is open in QA that needs to be filled, and I’ve been asked if there’s anybody here that can fit the bill. I want to look out for my younger employees and I know you have a couple kiddos now, so I’m offering it to you. It will be guaranteed work for at least a year, and in the next few months things are going to be drying up here more significantly, so…..Me: :) :| :( :? So, what’s it entail.Boss: it’s probably boring work, may be some travel, but it’s an opportunity to broaden your experience, and its guaranteed work. I can’t say you should take it, but if I were in your position, I would take it. It’s a lateral move, no change in grade or pay. QA head will talk to you if you are interested.Me: :kingmeh: Thanks. I’ll listen to the pitch….

Shit. So now it looks like I’m gonna take this offer I can’t refuse to do some boring ass work. But it’s a guaranteed income with good benefits for at least a year while I look for something else.I don’t know whether to be relieved, annoyed, secure, anxious, or what!Thanks, Eris!

yeah, he all but stated that outright.so it's not like i'm going to not take the job.shit they had a surprise sacking of %5 of the people here last year, and its still too tight...

What's going on is they have required job slots, but no money for those slots. I've been dealing with this for a year and a half...it doesn't mean the company is going under, it means that they're trying to prevent it from happening...and the first hit is always fixed costs.

oh, hell no the company isn't going under.we belong to L3 Communications... and we're the first and head of our particular niche in the MIC.if worst came to worst, we'd be sold off and downsized a bit, but we're not going under.military procurement is all but stopped for the time being, and it's hitting hard...but WWIII is scheduled before too long, and that should help pick up business.

At the party last night someone who I do not remember ever giving the link to my sinmonkey website came up to me and told me that my writing is amazing and my photos of the mausoleum are incredible.

Then Mario arrived and sat next to me for a while. And then he, also, brought up my writing. It seems like this is the week for it. We are going hiking next weekend. His girlfriend seems very insecure and would not acknowledge my existence, I am not sure how that aspect is being handled.

Weirdness abounds!

EOT is doing my grocery shopping right now, I'm pretty sure whatever he comes back with is going to surprise me.

then I go on my computer and find that I missed an exam for a class I'm retaking. The original syllabus said it was next week but the new syllabus said it was today. And I missed it. :horrormirth: :horrormirth: :horrormirth: :horrormirth:

Today I found out that the company that I work (ENT) for was bought out by a bigger company that has almost the exact same name (CO). They split 25 years ago for stupid franchising reasons and decided to merge again because my company (ENT) is $8 billion in debt. LOL, BUREAUCRACY!!!

Yesterday I had the biggest scandal with my mother and she even tryed to throw my PC out the window, but I managed to stop her. On the way to the astronomy club I saw a girl I have a huge crush on, making out with some guy in the park, which made my day a bit shittier. When I got home from astronomy my mother started crying and telling me that I'm a great kid, but I really need to improve my handwriting (WTF).

25 Feb 2010... I went to a "parent's class" at my son's school today. It's meant to be one of those "learn from each other's experiences" classes. Pretty par for the course (if you'll pardon the pun) of something that's offered at the school for the parents. After the class was over, I rang for a taxi so I could get home and relax for 30 minutes before my son got home. The taxi pulls up to the school, rings me so I know he's there. I walk out, after waiting for the receptionist to unlock the front entrance (it's a special needs school - they have to keep the doors locked so the kids don't wander out and/or go off with someone they're not authorized to be with) to see the taxi drive off! I ring for another, which gets there in just a couple minutes. Still not sure why the 1st one drove off though...he'd only been waiting one to two minutes.

I have another birthday party tonight though, shit could get crazy. OH actually come to think of it, I was surprised to learn that tonight's party is a banquet and I have to pony up $15, not including drinks. :x Fortunately my other friend told birthday friend that I am not bringing my kids, as there is no way in hell I can afford to just casually blow $60 on someone else's birthday dinner.

The only reason I can afford to go to the Fox as often as I do is that they give me free drinks. I think my tab was $12 last night, including the cigarettes I bought the birthday girl.

I went downtown and didn't see ANYTHING weird. I even kept my eyes open for anything and didn't listen to music.

However, going home, I saw 3 dudes running in just their boxers and tennis shoes, some dude on the bus shouted out "HEY! Let's all go to hell!", I saw some people lying down in a park as though they were dead, and some guy was carrying a microwave and a bag with a couple glass plates and some silverware in it. Now this is Tucson, so that may just be par for the course, but the thing that made me want to shout "Praise Eris!" was that one of the buses I was on broke down for no apparent reason. It just shut off. In a turn lane on a busy street.

PRAISE ERIS! :D

Title: Re: Surprise Me Eris! A 30 Day Experiment in FAITH.
Post by: President Television on February 26, 2010, 03:37:01 am

I forgot about this when I woke up, but as I was walking to my first class I remembered and said it to myself quietly but with conviction. Today, people treated me with slightly more respect than usual and I found two CDs that I wanted in a pawn shop(usually I don't find anything). I'm surprised.

I was pressed for time today to come up with a programming problem for the 'team', so I decided to make up a bunch of fake microcode and request them to make a brainfuck compiler for this hypothetical brainfuck-running CPU. I was a bit manic, and on a whim decided to actually DESIGN such a cpu, and quite nearly finished when I realized that I had quite accidentally numbered the opcodes in such a way that I could do instruction decoding with three or four gates rather than a whole multiplexer. Since class was ending, I was quite happy about this -- multiplexers are hard to draw the components for. I ended up having two identical blocks with some interconnections between them, plus a couple gates in-between and a loop-back or two.

Thanks, Eris!

(Disclaimer: I fully expect that once I'm off this caffeine high I will realize that none of my schematics will work.)

Ok has been a day of sheer insanity. First, I've been seeing words that aren't there all day. You know, seeing "harpies" instead of "happy"... "sex" instead of "socks" And earlier, I yelled at my cat, who was upstairs, she ran to the top of the stairs, stepped on a foam puzzle piece of my son's and promptly...surfed...down the entire flight of stairs on it. :P I really wish I had a video camera. hehe

Ok has been a day of sheer insanity. First, I've been seeing words that aren't there all day. You know, seeing "harpies" instead of "happy"... "sex" instead of "socks" And earlier, I yelled at my cat, who was upstairs, she ran to the top of the stairs, stepped on a foam puzzle piece of my son's and promptly...surfed...down the entire flight of stairs on it. :P I really wish I had a video camera. hehe

Do your sex make you harpies? If so, you should take a picture for spagbook.

Ok has been a day of sheer insanity. First, I've been seeing words that aren't there all day. You know, seeing "harpies" instead of "happy"... "sex" instead of "socks" And earlier, I yelled at my cat, who was upstairs, she ran to the top of the stairs, stepped on a foam puzzle piece of my son's and promptly...surfed...down the entire flight of stairs on it. :P I really wish I had a video camera. hehe

Ok has been a day of sheer insanity. First, I've been seeing words that aren't there all day. You know, seeing "harpies" instead of "happy"... "sex" instead of "socks" And earlier, I yelled at my cat, who was upstairs, she ran to the top of the stairs, stepped on a foam puzzle piece of my son's and promptly...surfed...down the entire flight of stairs on it. :P I really wish I had a video camera. hehe

Oh, and I was spontaneously invited to a lecture on J. R. R. Tolken, named something like "Tolkien: Master Strategist". I really hope it's about the LotR mythology being part of the war effort (to counter Nazi mysticism). It may just as easily be hours of an academic reading battle-scene passages from the books.

Oh: I have three things to do by March 23, two of which I found out about yesterday. Minimal synchronicity, but I can blame Goddess at least.

Ok, so I'm feeling a fair amount better, but I apparently don't know when to quit."Surprise me, Eris!" and poof! Now I have to play a show in Worcester. Worcester! I hate Worcester! This is why my bass-player wasn't allowed to book shows...

The server transition went absurdly smoothly. This must be Her work -- whenever I do something this complex, it ALWAYS screws up somewhere.

Title: Re: Surprise Me Eris! A 30 Day Experiment in FAITH.
Post by: President Television on February 27, 2010, 06:36:12 am

Second day: This morning, I walked to school through harsh winds and freezing rain, only to find out when I got there that school was closed due to the weather. I then turned around and walked back home. :|

I'm in. Actually I was in a few days ago but due to insane physical pain I didn't spend much time on the computer.

1st Day: I was on my way to the doc, doing some conciousness shifting exercises to endure the pain, finishing up with mad laughter and saying SME out loud on the street: a passer-by looked at me weirdly, and then immediately fell flat on the face due to ice/rain/snow everywhere these days. I laughed.

2nd Day: My mom took me to an old laundry place to check out a kitchen for my new apartment - the building is rotten to the core and we are basically scavenging before the dozer takes it down - and while we snooped around in the attic I find this giant steel locker. Needless to say I had to look inside, and there was an old paperweight from goddess-knows-when. I wanted to have it, but when I took it out I had to realize that was covered in something. Took me a felt infinity to get this sticky shit off my hands.

3rd Day (today): I only took a quick tour outside this morning to get my bandages changed but will leave for a cross-the-border-trip to danmark soon. The moment I leave the house I will invoke the mantra and see what comes out of it.

27 Feb 2010: Things are starting to get weird(er). It's been really cold in my house for the last couple days, even though the thermostat is turned up to 28 celcius. And....I'm seeing shadows and such out the corner of my eyes. You know, the kind that disappear when you turn your head to look at them. Starting to make me slightly paranoid when I'm alone.

Liam's cat just went on a rampage. He tried to tear the curtains down (again!) then ran across the bookshelves, causing an avalanche of books and cd's to rain down upon the lid of the fish tank. And right in the middle of all the mess was the insurance document I'd been looking for all week.

A quick list of the drivers involved in my hitchhiking to see a concert with a friend.

1st driver: Respectable looking businessman. Flash new Holden. Talking to business associates on his bluetooth for the first half of the journey. Then all of a sudden. Oh, shit! The police are up ahead! Hang up on business associate. Take the next left. "This is a shortcut! Fuck. Fuck! " 150km an hour all the way to where he stops just long enough to let us out before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

2nd driver: Two Brazilians who didn't quite understand the idea of driving on the left side of the road. Lost count of head-on collisions we narrowly avoided. Two lane roundabouts also were a mystery to them and they thought both lanes were for their use, swerving everywhere and causing havoc.

Arrive in Tauranga. Watch the show.

Leaving Tauranga. 3rd driver: Not much conversation, drove us 10 minutes down the road.

4th driver: Mad Englishman. Blasting around New Zealand playing with extreme sports because he runs a recruitment company remotely.Mad driver, sideways around some corners, but he seemed to be in control so it was okay.

5th driver: Middle-aged osteopath. Turns out he knows a friend of mine's parents. Is responsible for patching up the students at the circus school I'm looking at attending in the South Island. This guy was drinking energy drink after energy drink until his hands were shaking and he was still falling asleep behind the wheel. Driving a tiny little Starlet. Doing 130km per hour. This tiny car is getting speed wobbles. Says we're being dropped close to where we want to go. 2 hours on a bus later and we're there. He was basically going where we needed to be.

Party in Auckland. Chinese lantern festival. Everybody we meet wants to fight us because they're so bored with the festival.

Stand almost on the motorway trying to get a ride and not get picked up by the police.

6th driver: Got a ride with a quiet girl who drove to a place where we couldn't walk anywhere and had very little luck getting picked up because there was no room to pull over. It's progess, but it's hard to get out from here.

7th driver: Family on their way to the beach. Didn't want to talk to us. Quietly sit for a couple of hours. Nice rest.

8th driver: Amazing. This is Fear and Loathing in Northland. Handbrake assisted pulling over. "Get in, kids! Get in!"Starts telling us what he thinks about the universe introducing him to fantastic people. Discussing his raw food diet and what is wrong with western society's view on this and that. Turns around to talk to me in the back seat, driving with his knees. "Oh my god, you guys. I'm on so much acid. I took so much E. Do you want some?" Hands a bag of assorted drugs to my friend. Drives out of his way to come to our house and share his music collection with us. Fantastic driver, considering the chemicals playing with his brain.

Day 3 - part III invoked the mantra with a loud and ecstatic voice when I left the door in the afternoon. Not much happened until I was done picking up some last dinner supplies and headed down the main shopping road to get to my bus to Denmark. Saturday afternoon monkey business as usual, and I was getting more and more annoyed with the masses.Then I get my treat: three metro-sexual boys come out of a clothes store, swollen chicken-breasts, arms over each others shoulder, the usual parrot hairdo framing the happy faces of new-found bro-hood. For an added kink, my amusement and their rebellious satisfaction, they just purchased some cheap pink string tangas and wore these over their designer-broken jeans with utmost content. It was an odd picture at first but I came to realise that one should probably allow metro-sexual twats to express themselves fully and they might have just been catalysing the evolution of another horrible fad.

The small town in Denmark I visited was displaying itself in rather bland shades of grey and came with a fiendish smell that reminded a bit of rusty seagulls.Needless to say we spent minimal time at the beach and were inside for the remainder of the night.

Day 4I was supposed to leave early enough to make it to the hospital and then get to work. Unfortunately the buses don't display much to identify the destination and my friend was so eager to get back to bed after a short night that she just shoved me into the first bus that came - I convinced her to join the SME 'fun' and maybe some chaotic resonance just made me forget to double check with the driver. Anyhow, this bus was the one heading to a town further in the west instead of that little place near the border from which I can get back home.It took me two hours to get back to the smelly shithole I started from and then one hour to get back to Germany.Needless to say my boss was furious since I had to pay the hospital a quick visit to get my bandages fixed and was an hour late for work. In his overreacting rage he fired me.The job was just weekends, under the table and he is kind of a dick. So not much lost there, even though I can really use the extra cash right now.

Then, just outside my door I find five single cent pieces waiting for me. The 1cent coin is considered to bring good fortune, just like the old 1Pfennig coins. I smiled.

Nothing out of the ordinary happened today. Well, I won £3.80 on an online gaming site, but I'm honestly good at that game, darn it! :P

Title: Re: Surprise Me Eris! A 30 Day Experiment in FAITH.
Post by: President Television on February 28, 2010, 09:03:29 pm

Day 3: Me and my parents go to Miramichi to visit family. For most of the trip, the roads are plowed and conditions are acceptable, if a bit slushy. We turn into the final stretch of road, and it's a disaster. The snow is knee-deep and trees are bent so far over that it's impossible to stay on one side of the road. For the rest of the night, we expect the power to go out. Somehow, it doesn't.

Day 4: I wake up with 4 hours of sleep, we drive home. I doze off for most of the trip, but the whole time I notice that something smells like dog shit. I figure the dog just farted. It's cold, so I bundle up under a blanket and cover my head to keep warm. We get to my mother's office and we're about to go in and start moving things out of it (she's changing the location of her business). I go to take the blanket off, and I see something green and mushy under it. It turns out the dog did shit. All over me. While I was sleeping. So I wash the shit off my hands, and my stepfather says he's going to drive me home to change my clothes, but he decides to stop off at our landlord's house and switch to the plow truck. My clothes are still covered in shit. We get home, I change my clothes. Then we go back to the office. Not much worth mentioning happens there, except that I'm tired this whole time and by the time we've started bringing the stuff downstairs my hands have started shaking. Hypoglycemia+only a muffin to eat+4 hours of sleep=a completely zoned out state of mind. This whole time, of course, I'm doing something that I really should be paying close attention to. We get it all downstairs and start to load it into the truck, and this is when my stepfather starts getting really impatient, as is his habit. He gets pissed off and starts yelling at me, and this whole time I'm thinking, you're not the one who literally got shit on this morning. We finally finish the job, go home, eat lunch, and clean up the house a bit. Later on, I somehow manage to whack the edge of my eye socket on the corner of a wall.

I went to do the laundry today and the only place open was the crap laundromat across the street from us. Only it's not crap anymore.......sometime in the past week or so, the owner has repaired all the broken machines, fixed the air conditioning and the change machines, and turned what used to be an arcade room full of broken games into a combination waiting room/mini mart/taco stand. With hot pink furniture, a doll house, pinatas, and homemade tamales. Laundry hell has turned into laundry heaven. wow, good one, Eris.

Alright so shortly after I made yesterday's post about Day 1, I started thinking about my most recent hand drawn maze and how I hadn't got any comments and how nobody reads my wonderful maze blog and my career as a maze artist will likely go nowhere. Then, a friend I hadn't talked to in forever comes on IRC and goes, "hey tjg, have you drawn any more mazes recently?" and then we get into this huge conversation about mazes and it was awesome. Thanks Eris (I guess)!

And today (though I'll be staying up for a while which is enough time for weird stuff to happen, so this may be too early), I felt shitty all day. I didn't know why. At first I thought I didn't get enough sleep, for a while I thought I was sick, and then later I though I was just being a negative retard and it was all in my head. Then I go hang out with my friends, and on the way to get clove cigarettes I stop at a gas station. My friends are waiting in the car and I walk into the bathroom, which is a one person bathroom with just a toilet. I forget to close the door, and suddenly I'm having fucking diarrhea. Luckily nobody walked in on me, but I filled the mini-mart with a godawful smell and after cleaning my ass and hands, I got the fuck out of there. My friends almost shat their pants when I told them what happened.

Title: Re: Surprise Me Eris! A 30 Day Experiment in FAITH.
Post by: the last yatto on March 01, 2010, 04:36:19 am

Right out of the blue I remembered two different dreams I had ten years ago, in perfect detail.

One involved walking around a massive, all pristine white building with jet black fixtures, long walkways with nothing around them several stories above the ground, and a sense of it being a regular day of work, however no one was around as I boarded the elevator.

The other was about escaping from a burning building and a crashing helicopter at night. I then hopped on a bicycle, and rode over a dark, narrow and very old and rusty bridge to a bizarre labyrinth of cobbled together passageways that were suspended above the ground and also very old and dirty.

I remembered them in the middle of the day, very vividly. There was a complex, difficult to describe mood that unfolded in each as well. Very strange, since I rarely remember any dreams.

Another very strange thing relating to dreams (for which I can blame/credit Goddess): last night, I woke up with a full deconstruction of one of my favourite tv shows, with references, in my head. It's a step-by-step reinterpretation which, though original and applicable, will probably ruin the show for me forever (and a lot of other people too). Gee, thanks Eris!

tuesday but if you do at least a full page you can take up until friday :D

I don't know if I can do a whole page by friday, my last one took me a few months :pBut I can do one on a note card that would still be pretty kickass. You want me to do something with no exit like Mr. Wabash was saying? I don't think a circle would work so well on a note card so I could just fill it up.

I'm so tired. Really exhausted, like I haven't slept in days, even though I have.

This morning I got dressed (except for my socks/shoes) then came downstairs to make a cup of tea. Drank it, then went to put my socks/shoes on, but couldn't find my socks. Looked everywhere for them. Gave up, put another pair on, went to make another cup of tea. Found 1st pair of socks in the refrigerator.

Had a small thought of semi-wisdom while talking with "Frank" earlier. "It's a good question to ask yourself when you want to do something but are hesitant to do so. "Why should I not do this?" If there's a real reason (not an excuse) then don't do it. If all you can think of is excuses, then do it. Because excuses don't count. n_n " I still think it makes sense, which is rare for me.

Also used my TENS machine on my hands today since they've really been aching. 30 minutes of use and I could actually bend my fingers with just a small amount of pain. o_o Some of the pain has returned, but I can still bend them without wincing or saying "ouch"

So general conclusion: putting the responsibility of things going bad in our lives into the hands of godlike beings does not make us happier?

:)

Depends. I guess if we took the position that supernatural being X was to blame for everything even if we didn't invoke it, we might be slightly more pleased if our lives were nearly 100% shitty to begin with and we lacked any kind of perspective. Since we're coming to this from the POV of "let's do an experiment in locus of control!" we might be too self-aware to get the real benefits ;-).

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Also some other shit that I am not prepared to deal with happened. An old friend has a nasty narcotics problem and is fostering some kind of crazy drama with a married guy she had a one-night-stand with two weeks ago. Plus whatever it is that's going on that I don't know about. And don't want to find out about.

And my dad, who is the guy who fixes everything, is nowhere to be found.

And my dad, who is the guy who fixes everything, is nowhere to be found.

What? He's actually missing?

Not that I know of, yet. Officially. But he hasn't been here in over a month (he usually visits on Saturdays unless he has a conference or training) and when I called his house, my stepmom's answering machine no longer has his name in the outgoing message.

They've been together for like 20 years, so I can't imagine they've abruptly split up.

I don't know what the hell's going on. Things are really fucking weird.

Several days ago, I bit the inside of my mouth. Since then, I managed to bite the other side as well. Neither has healed, and the pain is making me grind my teeth. If Goddess thinks this is a surprise, I wonder what she'll get me for my 23rd birthday. Maybe cancer.

And my dad, who is the guy who fixes everything, is nowhere to be found.

What? He's actually missing?

Not that I know of, yet. Officially. But he hasn't been here in over a month (he usually visits on Saturdays unless he has a conference or training) and when I called his house, my stepmom's answering machine no longer has his name in the outgoing message.

They've been together for like 20 years, so I can't imagine they've abruptly split up.

I don't know what the hell's going on. Things are really fucking weird.

Crap, Nigel, that must be really scary. From what I heard though he sounds like the kind of guy who can come out of anything.

OK, I managed to get hold of my brother and my dad is fine. There's just some weird family drama going on involving my oldest brother (these are dudes I am related to but didn't grow up with, so I'm out of the loop on this, fortunately) and it's stressing everybody out.

I've noticed that since I started the days with SME, I've been more depressed, and today is the worst yet. Gee, thanks Eris.

That's been my experience too.

me too, man :horrormirth:

Title: Re: Surprise Me Eris! A 30 Day Experiment in FAITH.
Post by: President Television on March 02, 2010, 06:21:02 am

Day 5: I try to replace a broken string on my electric guitar. The replacement string breaks before I'm finished tightening it.Apart from that, nothing. I've been more tired than usual today, which is VERY fucking tired.

Title: Re: Surprise Me Eris! A 30 Day Experiment in FAITH.
Post by: the last yatto on March 02, 2010, 06:27:48 am

Eris tells me or was it some homeless womaneveryone must get a new discordian tattoo

Well, Sunday I got a free Roomba. Last night, I found out why it was being gotten rid of -- the adapter for the charger had its wires stripped near the base, and if you twisted them, it made a spark. So, my dad grabbed an old adapter for the same voltage and amperage and hooked it up to the connector. Unfortunately, as of yet it hasn't charged, and the roomba smells of ozone.

So, yeah: What I'm gathering from all this is that catching the attention of a Strife goddess (be it archetypical or mystical) isn't really the best of ideas.

Perhaps we should focus on what we did when faced with the unexpected strife?

One of the points of my own brand of Discordianism is not to avoid the chaos, not to clap my hands over my genitals eyes and say, "noooonononononono!" but rather to grab on and ride that fucker until it breaks.

So, yeah: What I'm gathering from all this is that catching the attention of a Strife goddess (be it archetypical or mystical) isn't really the best of ideas.

Perhaps we should focus on what we did when faced with the unexpected strife?

One of the points of my own brand of Discordianism is not to avoid the chaos, not to clap my hands over my genitals eyes and say, "noooonononononono!" but rather to grab on and ride that fucker until it breaks.

Thoughts?

TAKE IT TO THE WALL!

Also, what I am getting from this experiment is that a lot of Discordians are masochists. :lulz:

a lot of the stuff ITT is just run of the mill bad stuff. If you're really surprised by some of this stuff, you must surprise easy.

I was under the impression that the hypothesis of this experiment was exactly that.We're just making fun of the SMG thing where people attribute good things to YHWH by pretending that anything strange is attributable to Eris, right?well, we can either take it seriously and say, 'Nope. nothing happened', to which they would reply, 'well, yeah. your god is a heathen idol.', or we could be snarky and reach for things like they do to come up with the "evidence" like they do....

a lot of the stuff ITT is just run of the mill bad stuff. If you're really surprised by some of this stuff, you must surprise easy.

I was under the impression that the hypothesis of this experiment was exactly that.We're just making fun of the SMG thing where people attribute good things to YHWH by pretending that anything strange is attributable to Eris, right?well, we can either take it seriously and say, 'Nope. nothing happened', to which they would reply, 'well, yeah. your god is a heathen idol.', or we could be snarky and reach for things like they do to come up with the "evidence" like they do....

or were you joking, and i just ruint it?

ah I kind of figured that we were gathering testimonials which were a degree more psychotic than the typical Open Bar stuff. carry on!

NP,Met an old man who did random "contemporary" dance moves while turning a corner. He froze ... then raised his hands in the air and did something that looked like the "Running Man" (Hardcore style (?)) and then walked off like normal.

NP,Met an old man who did random "contemporary" dance moves while turning a corner. He froze ... then raised his hands in the air and did something that looked like the "Running Man" (Hardcore style (?)) and then walked off like normal.

I suggest Ben Franklin, since although he had a tendency to pull very odd practical jokes, he'd feel bad if they hurt anyone.

Trufax: During the formative pre-revolution stage, Franklin had an electrified portrait of the british king installed in the local bar. He dared any loyalists to make an oath to god of loyalty to the king and kiss the ring on his portrait.

There was also a wax replica made of him, which in his old age was circulated through britain and passed off as the man himself, until one old acquaintance of his by chance met the man trying to introduce people to the waxwork (who punched a hole in the head of the waxwork for not being polite enough to shake his grandson's hand). Although there is no proof that Franklin knew of this wax replica business, this was precisely the sort of thing he would have done himself had he a waxwork.

15 minutes into my run on the elliptical machine and I started crying. No reason. I'm actually under less stress lately than I have been for a good four months. I kept running and about five minutes later I stopped crying. I felt fine the entire time. I just had lots of water leaking from my face for no apparent reason. I've never had something like that happen before. Dunno what kind of hormonal shit that indicates.

I asked Eris to surprise me this morning and got to work to find an email from the boss saying that we weren't allowed on Facebook or forums during our work hours any longer. It also said that the IT guy had installed special monitoring software to make sure we didn't and those who attempted to bypass this would be in TROUBLE.

I'm the only IT guy.

I'm interested to see how my afternoon/evening goes. I'm planning on hitch-hiking to a concert.

Testimonial: Holy fucking fuck, Eris. When I asked you to surprise me, I was expecting all my friends to jump out with streamers and cake. Instead, I got to work and discover that some ASSHAT has been taking the credit for all the work I do. I thought I just wasn't very popular, but it turns out that nobody even knows I work at this company... All the work I do, he presents to the person I thought was my boss and then this fucker gives me a percentage of his paycheck so I don't notice.My entire life is a lie.Thanks Eris. I think I'm going to kill myself now.

Surprise Me, Eris Part 2 -Hitchhiking to a concert: A friend told me they could drive me as far as a city 2 hours away from me. That sounded convenient so I organised to meet up with them. To get out of this city, I need to walk about 2 hours and start hitching from there. Everywhere else is expressway and if you are seen walking on that, the police pick you up and take you all the way back to the beginning. It's like snakes and ladders. Friend is going to be an hour and a half late picking me up now because his car broke down. Thank you, Eris. You better be good to me after that, because then I have a ride to this other city which is surrounded in impossible to hitch out of motorways and need to work something out there.

If I start walking and hitch-hiking now, I'll still not get out of here faster than if I waited for my friend.Waiting for friend, I get to a city which will be an enormous mission to get out of and I end up trying to get out of there in rush hour traffic.It's also raining rather heavily here and apparently there as well if the internets weather has the troof.

I'm going to end up standing in the rain in the middle of nowhere trying to get a lift.This is what happens when you crash all the vehicles you own.

A quick list of the drivers involved in my hitchhiking to see a concert with a friend.

1st driver: Respectable looking businessman. Flash new Holden. Talking to business associates on his bluetooth for the first half of the journey. Then all of a sudden. Oh, shit! The police are up ahead! Hang up on business associate. Take the next left. "This is a shortcut! Fuck. Fuck! " 150km an hour all the way to where he stops just long enough to let us out before disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

2nd driver: Two Brazilians who didn't quite understand the idea of driving on the left side of the road. Lost count of head-on collisions we narrowly avoided. Two lane roundabouts also were a mystery to them and they thought both lanes were for their use, swerving everywhere and causing havoc.

Arrive in Tauranga. Watch the show.

Leaving Tauranga. 3rd driver: Not much conversation, drove us 10 minutes down the road.

4th driver: Mad Englishman. Blasting around New Zealand playing with extreme sports because he runs a recruitment company remotely.Mad driver, sideways around some corners, but he seemed to be in control so it was okay.

5th driver: Middle-aged osteopath. Turns out he knows a friend of mine's parents. Is responsible for patching up the students at the circus school I'm looking at attending in the South Island. This guy was drinking energy drink after energy drink until his hands were shaking and he was still falling asleep behind the wheel. Driving a tiny little Starlet. Doing 130km per hour. This tiny car is getting speed wobbles. Says we're being dropped close to where we want to go. 2 hours on a bus later and we're there. He was basically going where we needed to be.

Party in Auckland. Chinese lantern festival. Everybody we meet wants to fight us because they're so bored with the festival.

Stand almost on the motorway trying to get a ride and not get picked up by the police.

6th driver: Got a ride with a quiet girl who drove to a place where we couldn't walk anywhere and had very little luck getting picked up because there was no room to pull over. It's progess, but it's hard to get out from here.

7th driver: Family on their way to the beach. Didn't want to talk to us. Quietly sit for a couple of hours. Nice rest.

8th driver: Amazing. This is Fear and Loathing in Northland. Handbrake assisted pulling over. "Get in, kids! Get in!"Starts telling us what he thinks about the universe introducing him to fantastic people. Discussing his raw food diet and what is wrong with western society's view on this and that. Turns around to talk to me in the back seat, driving with his knees. "Oh my god, you guys. I'm on so much acid. I took so much E. Do you want some?" Hands a bag of assorted drugs to my friend. Drives out of his way to come to our house and share his music collection with us. Fantastic driver, considering the chemicals playing with his brain.

Testimonial: I'm coming down from an acid meltdown in the middle of nowhere, with no money, no phone and about half a dozen police cars looking for me. I came to in the passenger seat of a crashed car loaded with firearms, drugs and money. The driver was nowhere to be found but his seat was covered in blood. So is the outside of the car, for that matter... but the blood has been put there intentionally. Strange sigils and symbols. Diagrams I can't even begin to guess at the meanings of. Okay, Eris. I'm surprised. What now?

This shit seems to be working fine so far. :lulz: Last weekend was a magnificent bonfire of weird shit and spaggotry, which is to say that the meetup of a Finnish sci-fi and fantasy forum at my place turned out a lot stranger than I expected.

On Friday, my brother gave me this as some kind of a birthday present, which was a surprise in itself (we never ever exchange gifts, unless punching each other in the face and yelling "surprise!" counts): (http://i48.tinypic.com/5o5bw1.jpg)

The actual meetup was pure lulz, including two fucking epic rounds of 1000 Blank White Cards and definitely too much Robot Unicorn Attack. We bought broccoli in order to film a clip in which we destroy it in extremely creative ways, but I think we just forgot that, so we just kicked it around the apartment. At some point we decided to make some tea, and kick the tea bags around the place too, for reasons which probably made a lot of sense at the time, but now... Well, yeah. And all of this was done without even a drop of alcohol.At some point, we decided to go outside and play King of the Hill on the snowhills on a parking lot nearby. I was sure we'd all end up in the hospital dying in horrible pains, with random limbs broken or buried in the snow somewhere, but we survived with some bruises and a nosebleed and one aching knee.

There were pillow, snowball and sock fights. And also a personal drama element because my ex was there too, and we probably still had some stuff to talk about and blah blah blah. Which apparently resulted in lots of confusion on both sides, the stupid "man, what if we hadn't broken up after all" kind of confusion. But I'll probably not be able to blame that on Eris. (Well, except for the fact that maybe it would be easier not to think of him if he hadn't thrown that tea bag which somehow doesn't seem to drop from my ceiling. It's a very nice reminder. :lulz:)

The blood. Oh, fuck. So much blood. It's still kind of fuzzy, what happened. Going home from work. Jacket. Hat. Walk up the street to the subway, through the bitter wind, blowing like a jet engine between mirrored buildings, reflecting the stream of white collars taking the same trek. Get through turnstile. Avoid eye contact. Turn up the iPod a little higher.

The train rumbles in, a gigantic mechanical cock spewing out a new load of struggling drones and duds for the evening shift, as the spent automatons shuffle through the half-broken sliding doors. At the best of times, it's a tight fit. You need to have a certain flexibility to weave through the packed bodies, one arm lifted like a half-assed salute to the working day. But this was different. The bodies were nervous, like a pack of cattle when a Mylar balloon lands in the pen. Skittish. They were all pressing towards the front end of the car, as if some malevolent force was pushing them away.

At the other end of the car, it looked like one of the worker bees was having a bad day. The top two buttons on his shirt had popped off, power tie askew. Hair that had most likely been perfectly shellacked eight hours ago was in disarray, heavy strands hanging down his forehead, and jutting up from the kind of cowlick that must have gotten him a lot of grief in middle school. His face was twisted into a snarl, flecks of white spittle on his lower lip, and in the corners of his mouth. I pressed forward, against the weight of the masses, to get a better look. You could tell he was muttering something under his breath, but from where I was standing, I couldn't hear it.

His head snapped around, and he was looking straight at me. His eyes were bloodshot; the left one brimming with a tear, which gently shimmered on his lower lid and then let go, marking a track down through the faint evidence of a five o'clock shadow. His stare transfixed me, and I could finally make out what he was chanting under his breath.

The case slipped from his hand. It seemed to fall in slow motion, drifting downward to the floor of the subway car, streaked with the film of dried coffee, sugar residue from donuts, and grease from breakfast sandwiches hastily gobbled from the morning's commute. The edge of the case struck, and the shock broke the flimsy latches on top, security in name only. From its depths erupted paper, whatever anonymous reports and tallies from the quarter's bookkeeping, or reports, or memos, or minutes, or spreadsheets, or contracts, or bank statements, or bills, or receipts, or tax forms, or briefs, or faxes, whatever they were, they seemed to burst forth. But all that was forgotten when my eyes tracked back to his hand, rising upwards, fingers claw like, predatory.

With a shriek, those fingers clutched at his face, the nails digging in, and he pulled. Tiny half-moons of crimson turned into gutters of red as he scraped down his cheek. His left hand joined his right, tearing at his face. His ring finger jabbed underneath one eye, now filled with terror, not tears, which disappeared with a "pop" of blood and jelly. Two fingers caught on his lip, which tore away easily, exposing the pink gumline, white teeth stained red, a spray of blood spattering subway's car window. His remaining eye wheeled in its socket as his fingers continued to scrape away his skin, his right hand lowering to scrabble at his neck, looking for purchase, and finding it, and stabbing, and pulling, his left hand fluttering for a moment, then joining in to help its brother, clawing, ripping, tearing at his throat, until, with a guttural, bubbling finality, his hands came away in triumph, the horrific shrieking silenced, a gaping hole where his adam's apple once quietly bobbed and swallowed, swallowed all that his life threw at him, swallowed decades of shit and abuse and deadlines and progress reports and rejection and derision and advertising and mediocrity. His heart still beat, blood streaming and spurting from his throat. The only sounds now were these:

The blood. Oh, fuck. So much blood. It's still kind of fuzzy, what happened. Going home from work. Jacket. Hat. Walk up the street to the subway, through the bitter wind, blowing like a jet engine between mirrored buildings, reflecting the stream of white collars taking the same trek. Get through turnstile. Avoid eye contact. Turn up the iPod a little higher.

The train rumbles in, a gigantic mechanical cock spewing out a new load of struggling drones and duds for the evening shift, as the spent automatons shuffle through the half-broken sliding doors. At the best of times, it's a tight fit. You need to have a certain flexibility to weave through the packed bodies, one arm lifted like a half-assed salute to the working day. But this was different. The bodies were nervous, like a pack of cattle when a Mylar balloon lands in the pen. Skittish. They were all pressing towards the front end of the car, as if some malevolent force was pushing them away.

At the other end of the car, it looked like one of the worker bees was having a bad day. The top two buttons on his shirt had popped off, power tie askew. Hair that had most likely been perfectly shellacked eight hours ago was in disarray, heavy strands hanging down his forehead, and jutting up from the kind of cowlick that must have gotten him a lot of grief in middle school. His face was twisted into a snarl, flecks of white spittle on his lower lip, and in the corners of his mouth. I pressed forward, against the weight of the masses, to get a better look. You could tell he was muttering something under his breath, but from where I was standing, I couldn't hear it.

His head snapped around, and he was looking straight at me. His eyes were bloodshot; the left one brimming with a tear, which gently shimmered on his lower lid and then let go, marking a track down through the faint evidence of a five o'clock shadow. His stare transfixed me, and I could finally make out what he was chanting under his breath.

The case slipped from his hand. It seemed to fall in slow motion, drifting downward to the floor of the subway car, streaked with the film of dried coffee, sugar residue from donuts, and grease from breakfast sandwiches hastily gobbled from the morning's commute. The edge of the case struck, and the shock broke the flimsy latches on top, security in name only. From its depths erupted paper, whatever anonymous reports and tallies from the quarter's bookkeeping, or reports, or memos, or minutes, or spreadsheets, or contracts, or bank statements, or bills, or receipts, or tax forms, or briefs, or faxes, whatever they were, they seemed to burst forth. But all that was forgotten when my eyes tracked back to his hand, rising upwards, fingers claw like, predatory.

With a shriek, those fingers clutched at his face, the nails digging in, and he pulled. Tiny half-moons of crimson turned into gutters of red as he scraped down his cheek. His left hand joined his right, tearing at his face. His ring finger jabbed underneath one eye, now filled with terror, not tears, which disappeared with a "pop" of blood and jelly. Two fingers caught on his lip, which tore away easily, exposing the pink gumline, white teeth stained red, a spray of blood spattering subway's car window. His remaining eye wheeled in its socket as his fingers continued to scrape away his skin, his right hand lowering to scrabble at his neck, looking for purchase, and finding it, and stabbing, and pulling, his left hand fluttering for a moment, then joining in to help its brother, clawing, ripping, tearing at his throat, until, with a guttural, bubbling finality, his hands came away in triumph, the horrific shrieking silenced, a gaping hole where his adam's apple once quietly bobbed and swallowed, swallowed all that his life threw at him, swallowed decades of shit and abuse and deadlines and progress reports and rejection and derision and advertising and mediocrity. His heart still beat, blood streaming and spurting from his throat. The only sounds now were these:

Mere seconds after saying "surprise me eris" this morning, my phone rang. Oh snap, it's bill collectors informing me I'm $300 delinquent on my student loans and would I like to make a payment right now? Not fucking likely.

So putting that in the Law of Fives filter, I think Eris is teaching me a lesson, and that lesson is that I need to defer my loans and then perhaps get a new identity. Fucking Strife Goddess, always showing you your weak points.

EBS is right, this shit is crazy stupid!

Title: Re: Surprise Me Eris! A 30 Day Experiment in FAITH.
Post by: St. Everblaze the Badikal on March 03, 2010, 03:30:12 pm

After crossing the deathtrap intersection, getting to the classroom, and finally getting on wifi, someone came in and announce that class was cancelled. Cell phone reception suddenly turned improbably shitty, so I couldn't make plans. Now that I've sat down in a cafe and turned on my laptop, I have the sudden urge to shit.

I wrote a well written letter to The Times newspaper bitching about Homeopathy getting funding on the NHS whilst I wait 3 months to see a shrink, almost missed my train to meet my mum, found out that I am not entitled to buy a railcard for various discounts visiting Payne, I need a kid or to be blind, disabled or over 60 to qualify. The lady behind the counter told me I could get a young persons railcard to get the discount, but I'd need to be 5 years younger to qualify.

I met my mum, went to go collect my sister who came out bearing dim sum and she did not eat the entire box of chocolates in the car, got my entire outfit for my mums wedding sorted, including designer shirt and skinny tie,trousers and sequinned black jacket and waistcoat a hawt summer hippy dress for £1 just cos it was cute, and on the way back I found out that my brain damaged sister is better than any sat nav! There were no arguments AT ALL and had a lulz filled car journey home. I then managed to get into IRC for a bit, despite nothing else loading.

The surprise was having a day not involving a strop from JoJo and her awesome spatial memory despite her being brain damaged!

The blood. Oh, fuck. So much blood. It's still kind of fuzzy, what happened. Going home from work. Jacket. Hat. Walk up the street to the subway, through the bitter wind, blowing like a jet engine between mirrored buildings, reflecting the stream of white collars taking the same trek. Get through turnstile. Avoid eye contact. Turn up the iPod a little higher.

The train rumbles in, a gigantic mechanical cock spewing out a new load of struggling drones and duds for the evening shift, as the spent automatons shuffle through the half-broken sliding doors. At the best of times, it's a tight fit. You need to have a certain flexibility to weave through the packed bodies, one arm lifted like a half-assed salute to the working day. But this was different. The bodies were nervous, like a pack of cattle when a Mylar balloon lands in the pen. Skittish. They were all pressing towards the front end of the car, as if some malevolent force was pushing them away.

At the other end of the car, it looked like one of the worker bees was having a bad day. The top two buttons on his shirt had popped off, power tie askew. Hair that had most likely been perfectly shellacked eight hours ago was in disarray, heavy strands hanging down his forehead, and jutting up from the kind of cowlick that must have gotten him a lot of grief in middle school. His face was twisted into a snarl, flecks of white spittle on his lower lip, and in the corners of his mouth. I pressed forward, against the weight of the masses, to get a better look. You could tell he was muttering something under his breath, but from where I was standing, I couldn't hear it.

His head snapped around, and he was looking straight at me. His eyes were bloodshot; the left one brimming with a tear, which gently shimmered on his lower lid and then let go, marking a track down through the faint evidence of a five o'clock shadow. His stare transfixed me, and I could finally make out what he was chanting under his breath.

The case slipped from his hand. It seemed to fall in slow motion, drifting downward to the floor of the subway car, streaked with the film of dried coffee, sugar residue from donuts, and grease from breakfast sandwiches hastily gobbled from the morning's commute. The edge of the case struck, and the shock broke the flimsy latches on top, security in name only. From its depths erupted paper, whatever anonymous reports and tallies from the quarter's bookkeeping, or reports, or memos, or minutes, or spreadsheets, or contracts, or bank statements, or bills, or receipts, or tax forms, or briefs, or faxes, whatever they were, they seemed to burst forth. But all that was forgotten when my eyes tracked back to his hand, rising upwards, fingers claw like, predatory.

With a shriek, those fingers clutched at his face, the nails digging in, and he pulled. Tiny half-moons of crimson turned into gutters of red as he scraped down his cheek. His left hand joined his right, tearing at his face. His ring finger jabbed underneath one eye, now filled with terror, not tears, which disappeared with a "pop" of blood and jelly. Two fingers caught on his lip, which tore away easily, exposing the pink gumline, white teeth stained red, a spray of blood spattering subway's car window. His remaining eye wheeled in its socket as his fingers continued to scrape away his skin, his right hand lowering to scrabble at his neck, looking for purchase, and finding it, and stabbing, and pulling, his left hand fluttering for a moment, then joining in to help its brother, clawing, ripping, tearing at his throat, until, with a guttural, bubbling finality, his hands came away in triumph, the horrific shrieking silenced, a gaping hole where his adam's apple once quietly bobbed and swallowed, swallowed all that his life threw at him, swallowed decades of shit and abuse and deadlines and progress reports and rejection and derision and advertising and mediocrity. His heart still beat, blood streaming and spurting from his throat. The only sounds now were these:

I thought about doing this last night and this morning, when I got up to go to school. Just thought about it.

Got another parking ticket at school, then my battery died so I was trapped at my sister's school for an hour, and then found out there's a possibility I won't have this job after the end of the academic year since 17 teaching positions are being cut at the school I work at and the principal has free reign as to who to fire, so my boss might well be on the chopping block.

found out that I am not entitled to buy a railcard for various discounts visiting Payne, I need a kid or to be blind, disabled or over 60 to qualify. The lady behind the counter told me I could get a young persons railcard to get the discount, but I'd need to be 5 years younger to qualify.

but you can easily go for 5 years younger than you are :) play up the innocent-little-girl a littlebit and they might even forget to ID you?

Sometimes, you feel compelled to go out with your co-workers after the shift ends. I don't know why. Maybe it's someone's birthday, maybe someone's leaving the company (yet going off to another plug-and-play job), maybe… I dunno. But everyone's going, and you've been keeping your head down at work ever since you got there, and it looks like you won't be going anywhere soon, because of the health insurance, and you've got a mortgage, but anyway, you decide, "what the hell." Of course most of those going were the kind of people whose memory of "wild college days" were fifteen years behind them, and hadn't seen the sunrise from the back end of an all-nighter for a least ten.

Anyway, that's what I did: I joined a handful of cubicle mates at the bar across the street for a pint or two. It was a typical Irish pub, the standard shamrock above the door, hardwood paneling, trite and misunderstood Celtic knot work around the trim, the inevitable Guinness taps. We all got a round, and did what any work crew who has nothing else in common does: Talk about work. No one wants to, you understand. The whole point of "not at work" is to not be at work. But when your only shared experience is the data-crunching, paper-shuffling grind, there's nothing else to talk about. Unless you're willing to take a risk, of course. And no one wants to do that, lest they be judged. Oddly enough, they would spill their guts to me one-on-one, or when they thought no one was paying attention to their not-very-hushed voices on the phones in the middle of the cubicle farm. I mean, I knew that Laura, one of the older women on the team, used to be a stripper; I had a bead on who were the closet cases; and Max has some sort of heavy legal problems he was working out. It was the odd differences that made people interesting, but it was also those same differences that everyone judges us on. And if we are judged, then we can be rejected. And nobody wants to be rejected.

So, we talked about work, and drank. And then had another round, and the topics drifted into sports. Again, there were agreements on all sides, because who wants to start a sports rivalry argument with someone they will probably be working next to for the next few years, at the very least? By this time Alec, who his friends probably classified as a "wild card", but I labeled a "crew-cut douchebag ex-fratboy potential date-rapist" yelled out, "SHOTS!" and set us up with a round of tequila. True to form, it wasn't anything near the top shelf, it was that rail rotgut that made you gag as soon as it hit your tongue. I wasn't having any of it, so in the confusion of the moment where everyone was trying to figure out what the hell to do with the salt and the lime, I palmed the shot off behind me. After a chorus of "augh"s and grimacing faces, the crowd looked around nervously, excitedly. Somehow, a boundary had been crossed. We had done shots. Anything was possible now, right? Nothing happened, and Laura took a small sip of her beer. Alec broke the silence again with another bellowed "SHOTS!" and worked his way back to the bartender. This time, the one-ounce pours were simply deposited in the middle of a high-top, so it was easy for me to just take a swig of my beer while everyone else reached for the vile kerosene-flavored stuff. And so it continued.

Well, the conversations didn't really get more interesting after that, but they certainly got more animated. Now, instead of just work, they were talking about how much they hated other people they worked with, and how that affected their work. Most of them had finally backed off of the shots, but not Alec. He and a couple of newly-bonded sports buddies kept at it, and he was looking a bit unsteady on his feet. Compassionate me, I was getting concerned about him getting home, if not getting cut off and thrown out of the bar. His face had drawn into a frown, and I could tell he was entering that place in your head where things just start spiraling down into the blackness.

"Don't understand whass it all about." That's the first thing I heard when I stepped up to their high-top. It was hard to make out what he was saying because of the television blaring overhead, but he sounded insistent.

"'S not right. Jus' not right. I do well. I got my life together. Why'd that bassard get all the shit he wanted?" His head had dropped slightly, like his chest had gained a new gravitational pull in relation to his chin. "Gets what he wans. Always. Gess wha' he wans. Not me. I gotta work."

"Alec, you doing all right?" asked Jeff, one of the jocks half holding him up. "You don't look so good."

"Fine. I'm fine. Juss gotta work all th' time. Never stop. Don' stop. Juss keep workin'. Alla time. Don' stop." His face started losing color, like the blood was draining away. If I hadn't known he was so damn drunk, I would have been certain he was terrified. Maybe he was. Maybe the booze had opened up a hole in his heart. Not opened, though. Revealed. Sometimes alcohol can do that. It can lead you down a quiet road of intoxication, only to kick you over the edge of a cliff and into the void, where you tumble, forever lost in your own regrets and misgivings. Maybe Alec was seeing that for the first time.

"Can' stop. Jus'. Can'. Won'. Stop."

Jeff grabbed him by the sleeve. "Ok Alec, we need to get you out of here-"

"NO! Won' go! Gotta-" He grabbed a pint glass, straightened up with a wobble. "Gotta! Gonna reach it. Can' stop tryin'. Gotta WIN!" Gotta keep goin'. Keep… Keep. HURKK-" His body heaved, and the inevitable happened. Vomit lurched out of his mouth, splattering the high-top, splashing over the edge, dripping on the floor. A pillow of beer foam and the thin, acrid combination of beer, tequila, and stomach acid covered the table. Alec's face was gaunt, drawn, ashen. Then his body lurched again, and more came out. Thicker. Oddly colored. Green, some red. Some brown. Lumpy.

Everyone scattered backwards, trying to get away from the puke, and I saw the two bouncers by the door start making their way towards us. "You need to get him out of here," I said to Jeff, but he wasn't listening. He was just staring at Alec. "What the hell is that?" I looked, and wished I didn't.

Those lumps just recently launched from Alec's throat, they were moving. Twitching. Squirming? No, it was like… It was like…

Alec retched again, and more oddly colored vomit splattered on the floor. And more of those… things. But I could see what they were now. They had legs. They were struggling to free them from the vomit and bile covering them. They had legs. They had eight of them. Eight legs. And they were starting to free themselves from Alec's puke. And they were moving. The spiders were moving.

Panic ensued.

I don't really remember how I got home last night, or what made me come into the office this morning. Alec wasn't at his desk. Who knows if he's ever coming back.

Needless to say, this is one more thing we're not going to talk about.

It was a rough day at work. Had to cover for Alec until we can find a replacement. The amount of so-called "emergencies" just about tripled, so I couldn't find a moment's rest until the clock on the wall hit that magic hour, and I packed up my stuff and left the office. I kept my head down, didn't make eye contact, just kept my iPod turned up. I had a battered copy of some Larry Niven short story collection in my bag, so I hauled it out and pretended to read, just staring at the same words, over and over, until I reached my stop. Threaded my way through the crowded station, and into the cold night air.

No one bothered me on the way home, no bum looking for change, no Mormon looking for converts, no kids hassling me for being older and wearing a tie. I just wanted to get home. It was a relief when I stepped through the front door, and found nothing more than the cat and the wife. I like my house. Sure, it's actually a condo, but we were lucky enough to get a well-done top floor that did it's best not to resemble a standard apartment. The front door opens up on a cathedral ceiling in the living room, with a tacky yet effective gas fireplace on one wall, and the kitchen is just beyond, in an open floorplan that joins the two. There's a study leading to the deck behind that, and he bedroom is accorded it's own privacy, down a short hallway off of the living room, in a comfortable cul-de-sac, the only other door in the room being the one up to the attic. It's not that big, but it works for us; although we have been talking about moving if we ever have that kid. Anyway, we made dinner, then settled on the couch to listen to a record (yes, those large, round discs made out of vinyl) and read a little.

I had been feeling kind of under the weather for a few days, with a persistent cough and a stuffed-up head. Because of that, we decided to call it an early night, kicking the cat off of the bed and shutting the door, so she wouldn't be constantly scratching at the dresser and at the back door. She had only escaped down the back stairway once, when we were putting some old clothes up in the attic. The door from the bedroom leads both up there, and down to the basement, and the cat grabbed the opportunity to dash down the stairs, finding nothing, but not wanting to come back up. I finally had to go down there and grab her, all anxious claws and squirming fur, to bring her back up to the house proper. Ever since then, we haven't let her back down there, but she's become fascinated with it. Any time we're in the bedroom, she'll come in, purr at our feet for a bit, then saunter over to the back door and start pawing at it. No surface damage, but it's impossible to sleep. So, we kick her out at night. She doesn't seem to mind, and even if she did, who cares? My sleep is more important. And sleep is what I wanted at that point.

I'm not sure what time it was, but something woke me. It sounded like it was coming from upstairs. Groggily, I turned over, trying to get back to sleep, when I heard it again. It sounded like something being dragged a foot or so, and then dropped. Ok, I was awake now. There shouldn't be anything in the attic. There's no access. I waited, listening. Nothing. Then, again. That sound. Then silence. My mind raced, and I tried to think about what the hell was up there. Squirrels? Maybe a raccoon got up there. I tried to listen for it again. Nothing. I asked myself if I wanted to get a flashlight and go up there, and the answer was a quick "Hell no!" I wasn't going to go up there, half-asleep, cold-stricken, in the dark. That shit was straight-up horror movie. Then, the sound again. Fuck. A raccoon. Must be. Probably messing up some of our storage. Right? Anyway, the bedroom door that leads to the attic is always locked. I'll call an exterminator in the morning. I listened again, trying to hear the noise. I waited a long time to hear it again.

I must have dozed off, because I woke up with that painful bladder pressure that signals a stumbling shuffle off to the bathroom. It was still dark, and I stretched a bit, getting ready to face the cold tile of the bathroom floor. Then I froze. The sound. I remembered the sound. But I didn't have try that hard, because I had just heard it again, in the living room. Just beyond the bedroom door. I no longer had to pee. All of my orifices were locked up tight, and sweat beaded up on my forehead. The sound again. The short dragging, then a soft thud of something being dropped. Then silence.

That's when I realized that the only possible way for it to get there was if it came through the bedroom while we were sleeping. I couldn't move. I just lay there, petrified, and hoped beyond hope that I wouldn't hear it again.

I waited a long time.

The sun was just cracking over the windowsill when I finally managed to build up enough courage. I grabbed my glasses and one of those 7-day candles that was on our nightstand. It was the only thing that seemed heavy enough to use as a possible weapon, what with the thick glass and all. I gently opened the door trying hard to prevent any noises, but it managed a low, steady creak anyway. Nervously, I looked down the hallway into the living room.

Nothing. The early dawn light suffused the furniture in a soft light. Nothing. I crept into the living room, and peeked around the corner into the kitchen. Nothing. At that moment, the sound of our alarm pealed out from the bedroom for a moment, only to be cut off with a slap and a grunt from my wife, which could only be her rolling over in bed for another 10 minutes, as per usual. And that was it. The day started as usual, coffee-juice-vitimains-shower, and off to work again.

But the cat... She's been cowering in a corner in our study all day. She won't move. She just sits there, trembling, staring fixedly into the living room.

Title: Re: Surprise Me Eris! A 30 Day Experiment in FAITH.
Post by: St. Everblaze the Badikal on March 05, 2010, 03:18:13 pm

The pants I picked out this morning are too small. My cell phone, palm, mp3 player, and laptop (despite being charged up fully when I left) ran out of batteries all at once. The busses were not on schedule, and so I arrived ten minutes late for class (though the professor arrived eleven minutes late for class, luckily) rather than an hour and fourty minutes early for class (like usual).

So, my dad bought a used (full) funeral urn at the flea market for $1. I'm not expecting any hauntings, since the two human skulls we've had on the mantle for ten and twenty five years (respectively) have yet to start screaming in the middle of the night.

Had a good day with my family went to the dog kennel for adopting a mutt for my mum her fiance and my sister. We reserved a half springer spaniel half dalmation called Murphy who is wicked handsome and a lovely dog, he's seven years old and very sketchy, and apparently no one has ever asked to walk him with a view to adopting!

I spotted him and his brown and black spots. My dad booked the tickets for my visit to see Payne later this month.

Pics of dog will follow once its confirmed my mum can have him. I will admit to having swayed my family toward him and he will be an awesome incentive to mek my family fitter and less stressed.

There was some drama at the beginning of the day with my dad saying he wanted a word with my mum, but it was minor and just his wife being territorial about mum going into the house.

Some really cute girl posted on my friend's facebook wall that she misses him, so I commented that I missed her. She wasn't freaked out, and reciprocated. Then I asked her to marry me. She consented. Now I'm married. On facebook! Fuck..

After spending the previous day sick in bed, I finally felt good enough to make it outside. Excitingly enough, I had to go grocery shopping, as per our normal routine. Say what you will, but it's only a "foolish" consistency that's the hobgoblin of little minds. Me, I happen to enjoy having a fridge with more in it than pickles, mustard, and an old chicken leg. One of the perks of working the white-collar circuit is the ability to rise above the borderline-catastrophic bio-survival level to a point where instead of worrying about where my next meal is coming from, I can worry about what my next meal will be, instead. I've lived both sides of that coin, and let me tell you, I prefer the side I'm on. It's a myth that the starving artist is more creative. Or rather, it's a myth that it's the horrible conditions that foster creativity.

It's the act of embracing creativity fully that creates the horrible conditions, you see. Here, try on an example for size: Me as the creative being. Wake up around 10:00, roll out of bed, head to the computer. Get some beats out of my head, fool around with a bass line, pull up a track I've been mixing, focus on the levels for the 15-second breakdown for a few hours. Throw together some reheated rice and frozen spinach, throw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt from off the floor, and head out to band practice for four hours, then snake a few drinks at the bar next door. Head home, do some more mixing, crawl off to bed.

Please note the lack of the following in the above: Employment, hygiene, adequate nutrition, the love of another human. But holy shit, I was productive when I wasn't scared to death about food, shelter, or personal safety (due to where I was living). Today, I don't have as much time to create as I used to, but not only do I still create, I'm not constantly in a state of bio-survival anxiety. Plus, I got a smoking hot wife. Anyway, I went to the market.

The cold hadn't completely gone away, so I was a little dazed still. Our weekly menus change slowly, with the seasons, but with enough variation that we don't get bored. We have a few staple vegetables we like to get (cauliflower, broccoli, asparagus), and there's usually a whole roast chicken on Sunday (leftovers for lunches), but the rest of what goes in the basket depends on what's looking good that day. Sometimes the whole process can have a domino effect (the avocados look good, so a whole list of ingredients follow behind), but on other days, it just bogs down (sunchokes? Fresh bream? Haloumi cheese?). Today looked like it was going to be neither of these. Today was going to be "wander through the store, grab what catches your dull, virus-ridden eyes, and then figure it out when I get home."

I pushed the cart ahead of me down the produce isles, grabbing some Brussels sprouts, a bell pepper… I turned the cart left, down past walls of apples and there was the hand. Just three fingers, really. Jutting out from the third row up of the Golden Delicious stack. They didn't look healthy. One of the fingernails looked smashed, black and blue. Another nail had a thin rim of caked blood underneath, and the third was halfway ripped off. The flesh underneath was in no way fresh, it was purple and mottled. I had stopped dead in the isle, and an old woman pushed past with a scowl. She walked up to the pile of green fruit, picked a couple off the top, and moved on, muttering about, "kids and their rudeness," or something like that. She either didn't, or couldn't, see the hand. Was it me? I took a step closer, and even with a stuffed-up nose, I could smell the rotting stink of old meat. I could now see something like bite marks on one of the fingers, but I didn't have enough experience in these matters to tell if they were animal or human bites. I looked around to see if anyone else noticed this thing sticking out of the apple pile, and took another step forward.

I stopped short as the fingers straightened out, and thrust forward. Some of the skin had either peeled back or been torn away. I saw tendons, and muscle, dark, rotting flesh, and a flash of gold. They clutched around an apple, and then both the hand and the apple disappeared into the pile. I flinched as the entire pile collapsed, spilling onto the floor, dozens of apples rolling away, getting under the wheels of shopping carts, bouncing into people's legs, as I stood there, staring. As the apples fell, I swear I could see something, something large twisting under the pile, violently working its way downward to the floor (through the floor?), and then there was nothing. Nothing but a scattered pile of apples, a roomful of stares, and me, standing there, transfixed.

The hand. As it grasped the apple, I could see a ring. I recognized it. I knew whose hand that was.

I really enjoy having an alarm clock that can play my iPod. I even set the alarm early so I can lie in bed for a few minutes, listening to what random selection pops up as I slowly stretch my limbs out and rub the sleep from my eyes. From there, it's back into the routine: Grabbin' juice, grabbin' pills; kick the coffee machine into gear; check the RSS feeds for a few minutes; shower; shave; dress; grab the coffee mug, and head out the door.

There have been debates about this, but I kind of prefer the morning commute over the evening one. While it's true that it signals the beginning of enforced employment, the final confirmation of a guaranteed eight hours devoted to tanning beneath the fluorescence, it's also true that the people are more docile. I know, it can be creepy to see them lined up on the train platform, half-awake, their near-dead eyes only registering shapes and movement. I wonder what goes on behind their eyes as they lockstep their way off to work. Maybe they're thinking of what the left behind. Maybe it's what they're working towards. Maybe they're realizing that what they're working towards doesn't actually exist. Who knows? Maybe they’re just thinking about their next cup of coffee. To be honest, I don't really care. They're sluggish, predictable. They stay out of my way, and I theirs, and everyone's happy. Well, maybe not happy, but at least they're not bothering me.

The doors opened at my stop, and I joined my fellow commuters through the grey, high-vaulted station and through the revolving doors leading out into the Financial District. A few rays of sun had broken though a uniformly dismal fleet of overcast clouds, casting odd patterns of light on the exposed brick of the station walls before disappearing back into the gloom. No one noticed, their eyes were all tilted down slightly towards the sidewalk, cajoling their feet to bring them to the office for one more day, one more week, a decade, just until retirement.

As predictable as the morning commuters are, so are the panhandlers. There's usually one or two down the block from the subway exit; I can't tell if there's a pattern or a hierarchy or a rotating schedule at some main headquarters somewhere, but a few regulars frequent the area, never at the same time, never on the same day. They each have their own style, from "spareadollarforahomelessveteran" to "pleasehelpgodbless" to a sign, a cup, and a look of tentative anticipation.

Ok, so now the uncomfortable revelation: I rarely give any change to them. I tell myself it's because I don't actually have any on me, which is usually true. But I know they're going to be there, so it's not like I can't plan ahead. There are about a dozen more excuses and rationalizations I tell myself, trying to assuage the pangs of guilt walking by them. Usually, they work. So, when I spotted an old man in a tattered wool coat standing slightly hunched at the mouth of public access alley 503, I mentally pulled my "don't bother me" coat a little tighter around myself.

The parts of his face I could see were weathered, lined with wrinkles, and perhaps an old scar. The rest was taken up by a long grey beard, tangled and slightly greasy. He had a knit cap on his head, slightly askew with the words "HONK IF YOU'RE HORNY!" written across it, and a pair of frayed pant legs jutted from beneath his coat, ending in battered Avila sneakers. Even from down the street, I could see he was having trouble standing. He swayed from side to side, occasionally shifting his feet to keep balance. I wasn't sure if he was drunk or sick, but it was probably both. I knew I was going to have to walk past him to get to my office, though for a second I wondered how rude it would be to cross the street so he wouldn't be able to speak to me. Turns out, that wasn't necessary.

His knee buckled, and pitched him to the sidewalk. The coat he was wearing fluttered around him, and settled over his body like a shroud. I cursed under my breath, and chided myself for being an asshole as I stepped up my pace and headed towards the heap lying on the concrete. I fumbled for my cell phone, unsure of what to do. Call 911 and say, "Some homeless man just collapsed on the street. What? Yes, I'll hold." Dial the operator and ask for the nearest homeless shelter? Call a cab? But then the thoughts I was juggling in my head came crashing down to shatter on the pavement as I saw some huge insectoid leg reach out of the alleyway. It had to have been six or seven feet long. It arced up and out from some (thankfully) unseen body, and ended in a small point that jabbed into the huddled shape on the sidewalk. A bright patch of red bloomed on the grey wool of his coat as the monstrous leg began to drag the body into the alley. I froze, watching in horror as businessmen, lawyers, accountants, MBAs and CPAs all walked past, oblivious to what was happening right in front of them. The man's body disappeared into the alleyway, and I tentatively walked to the corner, and looked down the narrow gap between the buildings. Nothing there but a streak of blood, and a knit cap that was still giving me instructions of what I should do if I'm ever horny.

Day after tickets were booked, overslept. Meds are kicking in. Missed appointment with my advocacy worker. Watched a Dirk Bogarde film about blackmail of homosexuals prior to the repeal of anti sodomy law in the UK. Got messages from Payne saying that the money situation seemed procarious for the visit. Situation resolved, dad made duck in plum sauce. Unsurprised by lack of vegetables. Got surprising urge for sweet things.

Today got tickets and overslept. Bought tobacco.

Have realised unless you leave the house this experiment surprises no one.

Have noticed less psychotic episodes, still getting auditory hallucinations. There isn't much difference in symptoms just when its a hallucination I can tell if it is real or not. Have been suffering from Phil Collins hallucinations.

I'll join in a little late on this experiment. Seems like a whole lotta fun to me.

Instead of saying, "Surprise me, Eris," with each day I awake, I'm going to wake up someone each day by texting them, "Surprise me, Eris."

I'll mostly be texting some stupid girl, three states away, that I'm not-so-secretly in love with, whom refuses to come and visit me. Yes, it's sad.

Then again, I could always run into someone's house and wake them screaming, "Surprise me, Eris," at the top of my lungs. I do have several friends that owe me over $500 and I think this would be a great way to remind them how silly I can be, especially when owed money to.

Yesterday I woke up, said SME and saw the snow and at first like :x But then I thought that maybe as usual it has blocked public transportation and that we are not going to school and I was like :D But then I turned on the TV to see if we were going to school and the news announcer was like "Today students are not going(and I was like :D) to be excused from school(and then I was like :x). So I went to school and in IT class checked on the net to see if tomorrow we were going to school, and the news said we weren't and I was like :D, but later on the news they said that the mayor said we were and I was like :x . And today we went to school and I got a C in chemistry, as I didn't study :x

There's a certain level of balance you have to maintain when working in an office environment. I know that sentence is the surest indication that I've rationalized away my misgivings about my job, but hear me out. A lot of the working stiffs in this world of mine are given specific tasks and responsibilities, and they tend to develop certain routines around it. The longer they work here, the more rote and mechanical they become, as they mold themselves around their assigned duties. To be honest, it's fairly inevitable. The human brain seems to adapt well to routine, and if you want to guarantee quality and accuracy, you pretty much have to do things in a certain order. Repeat a few thousands times, and your mind and body wrap around your job in a way that deadens the soul. Such are the quandaries of life.

When I started here, I was given an incredibly monotonous task that at the same time was incredibly important; I won't get into the details, but it was basically a manual process that the hi-tech platform wasn't programmed for, and would cost too much to add a piece of code to the system. The process only takes about two or three minutes, but it needs to be done to every case that we handle. So, I basically had to do the same process about 175 times a day. 875 times a week. 3,500 times a month. 42,000 times a year. Yeah, I developed coping mechanisms. One of the things I did was counter-intuitive; I figured out ways I could get through the process faster. Power keys, pattern recognition, and the rest of the usual tricks shaved off a bit of time. Not much, but it added up. Enough that I could run through a stack of cases and be left with some free time here and there. That freed me up to engage my mind on different levels (for example, there's this forum I post on a lot, you may have heard of it. Lots of creative people, great fun. I'll send you the URL if you're interested). A manager might say that I was wasting valuable time, but those moments of free time allowed me to keep working. My mind would have ground to a halt if I didn’t have at least something to occupy my frontal lobes while the rest of my brain went through the motions.

Anyway, after a couple of years (84,000 times) I got promoted. But I knew going in, from watching the rest of the team, that what I was going to be doing was in principle the same thing – the only difference being that the process now took (more or less) 25 minutes start to finish (18 a day/90 a week/360 a month/4,320 a year). My solution was to study the fuck out of the process, and lean it top to bottom. From there, it was only a matter of time before it became clear that I knew how to fix problem cases, where to go, what to look for, who to contact. It didn't take much convincing to be promoted again, to a new kind of position, one of "Troubleshooter". I had gotten out of the routine game by mastering the routine, and going meta on it. I now was more of a consultant and fixer, the guy with the answers and who would get called when everything was careening out of control. Things became a bit more unpredictable, I wasn't sure what I'd be seeing from day-to-day, and the mind was engaged more.

Ok, let me just say at this point that I'm pretty aware of how boring this sounds. In fact, this is probably the most I've talked about my job in years. The point I'm trying to get to is that, even after getting to the point of troubleshooter, it's still a fairly routine job. The problems I encounter have gotten familiar, and I'm beginning to see a cyclic trend of what goes wrong, and when. Which leads me to the next thing that breaks up routine, and brings me back to the beginning of all of this: Sometimes, I like going to meetings.

I know, I know. Meetings are probably the most useless part of anyone's day. A bunch of people talking past each other, grandstanding and hooting. What could be done with a handful of thought-out sentences becomes a process of semantics and politics. But you know what? So long as I don't have to do it every day, it breaks up the day. I can treat it like anthropology, observe and engage in the naked manipulation of other people through intimidation and emotion. And this is where I found myself, listening to the VP harangue a manager for something that the Compliance team never even defined clearly. It was entertaining to see the familiar gamut of emotions and body language flowing back and forth between them, offering more information than any of their words could. The manager, an overweight, mousy-haired guy with a sweater vest, was clearly attracted to the VP, who was a short, thin, shrewish woman in a severe business suit and lipstick a shade darker than was probably good for her. I tried not to think of the implications if they ran into each other at the next Holiday party when they both had bellies full of cheap, free booze. Then, considering all options, I deliberately started thinking about it, because it was more amusing than watching the inevitable conclusion to the meeting. The VP won the battle. Back to our desks.

I decided to take the stairs, because it was only one floor down, and the banks of elevators were notorious for anticipating the direction you wanted to go, and then making you wait as it spent ten minutes carrying people the other way. I swiped my ID through the lock next to the heavy steel fire door that opened up into the stairwell, and pushed through. Like all office building stairwells, it was painted blue-grey with a stripe of reflective tape along the edge where the stairs met the wall. The stairs spiraled downward in a series of 90 degree left-hand turns, with the same imposing door at each level. I grabbed the railing and started down, glancing over the side. The stairwell yawned beneath me, stretching away into dark, hidden depths. But that couldn't be right. I was on the fifth floor of an eight story building. It looked like the stairs continued down far more than five flights. More like… I didn't know. I couldn't see the bottom, but there had to be at least twenty more floors below me before the light faded out. I looked up, and the stairs spiraled up, up, out of sight. A glimmer of what could possibly be a skylight made a pinhole dot in the twisting grey helix of the stairs, making me dizzy. I stepped back from the edge, and leaned my back up against the wall, as I heard the slam of one of the big metal doors somewhere above me. The echoes deafened me, and made it impossible to tell how far up it was. As the booming faded, it was replaced by choked sobbing. I grabbed the railing, and leaned forward, looking up.

He was about ten floors up (which my mind still refused to accept. This building was definitely not that tall. I should know, I've been working here for years), and I could make out a gaunt face that was almost lost in the progressing spiral of endless grey steps. His bright red power tie dangled over the edge of the abyss below us, and his shoulders seemed to shake and heave as he wept. "Hey," I called out. "You ok?"

He jerked at the sound of my voice, and then noticed me. "I can't," he called down. "I just can't."

"What?"

I barely heard him say it again, "I just can't," and then he leaned forward as far as he could, and dropped over the side of the railing. He tumbled, limbs loose, down the central shaft of the stairwell. Three floors down, his head struck the railing with a dull gonging sound, and his body spun wildly around, an arc of blood tracking the rotation. He fell past me, and I could only get a brief look at his face as he went by. The left side of his forehead was crushed from the railing, and his eyes were blank, lifeless. I leaned over the railing, watching him fall, as he disappeared noiselessly into the cavernous darkness below. There was no sound. No body hitting the ground. He just vanished into the abyss. I sat down heavily on the steps. The memory of his eyes burned inside my head. It was familiar. It was exactly the same look I've seen in the office. I've even seen it in the mirror once or twice.

I've had this bad attention span recently, where I skip stuff that's more than a few paragraphs. But I've been enjoying the fuck out of your experimental reports, lmno. These are chilling. Especially the last four sentences. Poe says that in a good short story, every single word is just a build up for the climax. And even the opening minutiae about your routine job, even you mentioning that you know how boring it sounds, enhances the delivery of emotion at the end. Bravo!

I got up before 10am today, the first surprise,got into the car and said "surprise me Eris!" kinda internally went to go take my council tax statement to the office in town with my dad, and got everything set to get my £67 back. Then I went to my bank to check all my benefit payments. The first payment for my non-rent related benefit went in on the date stated, and there was an extra bumper payment for my housing benefit, meaning I am no longer broke.:banana: This is pretty fortuitous as I need to get some basics for my visit to see Payne, essentials like a waterproof jacket and condoms. So I went into town to get the things I needed, I got a cute womans waterproof in a bag, in a non disgusting shade of purple. When I was checking prices for waterproofs I got a phone call from the sick benefit people, saying that my sick form had been found, the one that had previously been lost, and that they were going to give me some more money, that should clear by Monday! My dad looked at me funny for asking for side salad with duck in plum sauce with noodles, but then I get asked to have rice with it.

I may have mentioned this before, but I work in a cubicle field. That is, the entire floor is open, no walls, with rows of three-foot high modular walls creating "X"s on the floor, and in each corner of the "X", sits a obedient little worker; their standard issue Dell computer, glowing monitor, filing cabinet, phone. Some people don't decorate their cubes, which is depressing. Other people spend a lot of time putting up pictures of cats, and Dilbert cartoons, and posters that say things like, "You don't have to be crazy to work here, but it sure helps!" which makes it even more depressing. When you see that someone took that much dedicated time to decorate their workspace, you wind up remembering how many hours you actually spend at that desk, and how easy it is to just let the non-work part of your life just slip away. Eventually, you wind up moving most of your stuff to the office, and only use your house to eat, bathe, and sleep.

They handed out a survey the other day. It asked us questions about "respect and dignity in the workplace," with a small box next to each question where we could write our answers. I just stared at it for a few minutes. There's no way I could complete this. I mean, I knew what they what they were looking for. Undoubtedly, HR had gotten wind that some people were unhappy working for the company, and were trying to make them feel good about themselves and their jobs. They wanted to hear responses like "I don't want to be ignored." The people working here just want someone to come by once a week, or even once a month, pat them on the head, and tell them they're doing a good job. They want to keep perpetuating the illusion that their work has value, or that the importance of what they do in turn makes them important, too. HR was looking for the quick fix for an entrenched problem. The problem, of course, is that humans have these pesky feelings. You can't just use them for their analytical brains without also having to eventually deal with their emotions, as well. The problem is most felt by those who have forgotten about their lives outside the office. If the company is all you have, then the company is the only thing giving your life any worth.

The whole idea of "respect and dignity at the workplace" is meaningless if you're dealing with people who surrendered their own respect and dignity to the monolithic company. All you can do at that point is set up arbitrary and cyclical appreciation periods, from the rote "you're all doing a great job, really" meetings to hosting the tab at a bar for your team. You have to create an artificial life for them, to give them the comfort and affirmations they crave. But that's not respect. That's not dignity. Respect, like communication, only happens between equals. Dignity is something you hold within your chest like a pike in the face of an oncoming cavalry. And what each person needs to build their dignity and respect is unique to that person. You can't just institute a new set of rules that sort of fits a Gaussian average based upon surveys. It's all one long tail.

If they really wanted to create respect and dignity in the workplace, they would look to help each employee strengthen the quality of their non-work life. If a person can have something to live for outside of the office and the paycheck, then they don't have to rely on the company to give them a sense of meaning. Of course, this would necessarily threaten the top-down corporate hierarchy and business model that has been forced upon us since feudal times, for so long that it looks like the only viable approach. And HR can't have that. So, as I stared at the survey, I decided I couldn't complete it. There was no reason to do it if I couldn't be honest, and it was a complete waste of time to try to fit in a contrarian philosophy into a 1" x 3" box that would be of no use to anyone. I let the survey fall from my hand, onto the desk, and said, "Hey, Rick, what do you think of this thing?" Rick sat on the other side of my cubicle wall. He didn't say much, but he seemed to do his job well enough. I didn't hear a reply, so I stood up to see if he had stepped away from his desk.

He was still there, staring at his computer screen. "Rick," I said again. "Hey…" He didn't seem to hear me. He was wearing headphones, and his eyes had glazed over, his mouth half open. Was he asleep? I glanced down at his desk, he had one hand resting on his keyboard, and the other hand was – What was up with his mouse? There were chrome bands wrapped around his hand, coming from the sides of his mouse, keeping his hand firmly wrapped around it. He clicked it, moved it to the left, but no, Rick wasn't moving the mouse, the mouse seemed to be dragging his hand to the left. He let out a low wheeze, and I looked up at his face. A thin line of spittle had escaped from the corner of his mouth, and was working its way down his chin. That's when I noticed that his fancy in-ear headphones weren't actually in his ears. They seemed to be more like plugs, and were fastened tightly to his head, just behind the jawbone, but just in front of his ears. The black cylinders had small LED lights that flashed a dark red in a slow, repeating pattern. The mouse moved again, jerkily, and the spit from Rick's mouth dripped onto his shirt.

I turned and made my way out of my cube, into the field, to get around to his side. I lost sight of him as I got to the end of the row, but as I came back down the other side, I could see he was still there. "Rick!" I barked at the back of his head, and then came up short as I saw the interior of his cube. He turned around, eyes clear, no headphones, hands in his lap. His mouse looked like just another computer device. "Hey, what's up?" he asked. "Sorry I didn't hear you before. I guess I was just in the zone." I couldn't speak. The walls of his cube were covered with picture upon picture of those "cute" animal pictures. Dozens of kittens, puppies, cartoons of infants with kites, baby chicks and baby seals, pandas, koalas, and all the rest, layered one on top of the other, hastily stapled into the fabric of the cubicle walls. They were like scales on some kitsch-mad snake, overlapping each other. Only someone, most likely Rick, had taken a black crayon and drawn a heavy, rough X on their faces and heads, obliterating them. His entire cubicle had become a negation, a denial of self.

I said something to Rick; I can't remember what, most likely something banal and nonsensical, and walked back to my desk. I sat there for a minute, then picked up the phone and dialed a handful of numbers.

HFLS says he apologizes for his absence from this thread and from PD in general, but he's been so busy dealing with the surprises that happened during the past 17 days that hasn't been able to cope with anything more than real life. He says "Fuckety fuckety fuckety fuck! Thirteen more days to go. Shit!!"

No surprise, the one thing that keeps me going in this world is my music. My parents started me on it young. Piano, naturally. But it wasn't until high school I was able to get my hands on a drumset, and that's when things really took off for me. I've been playing ever since, or at least trying to. It's become such a part of my life that when I was unable to play for a year or so due to forces beyond my control, I kind of lost my shit. At the very least, I became a different kind of person, angry and cruel. For some reason, drumming stabilizes me. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to give it up, although my joints might eventually tell me otherwise. We'll see.

There was a point in my life when I could have chosen a different path for myself. I had dropped out of college to play in a band with my brother. I was 19 at the time, and as oblivious and solipsistic as a 19-year-old could be. I dove headfirst into the music, playing for hours every day, writing songs, playing basement shows, and getting paid in beer. Then came the thrill of stepping into a recording studio for the first time, and having an actual cassette in my hands of something I had done (this was before ProTools came along and changed everything. Pay attention kids, there will be an ancient history quiz later). As time went by, it started becoming clear that if I was going to do this, I couldn't float along off of handouts and couch surfing. I'd have to get a job, pay rent, and all the rest so I could stay in town and keep playing shows and getting our band out there. Or, I could go back to college, and do the band thing later. Silly, solipsistic me, I thought that I could get right back into the scene after I took a four-year break.

And that, as they say, was that. At the time, it wasn't clear to me that it's really easy for a foolish teenager to sacrifice creature comforts to chase the dream of being a rock star, but it gets harder and harder as you go. I never left drumming, and I kept improving as a player, but that door had closed, it seems. Others kept opening, though. Which is why I was at band practice last night. As it turns out, I wasn't really alone in my obsession with music, and it's really easy to pay for rehearsal space when you and your band mates all have good jobs and are old enough to be responsible about coming to practice and paying rent. And after 20 years, I think I've found something that fits me the right way, again. And we have a pretty big show for us coming up. Big for us, anyway. If things go well, it could bring us good things. Which is why we needed to practice, and get the set tight.

The place were we rehearsed was in a squat, square, brick building on the outskirts of an industrial park. Inside, it looked like a college dorm, but more squalid. Concrete floors, stains on the walls and spills on the floor, and the constant smell of stale cigarettes and sweat. The hallways were lined with doors, each of them locked, but opened onto a small room, just enough space to cram a drumset in one corner and a couple of Marshall stacks in the other. It was a fairly labyrinthine structure to get through, and as I walked the twisting corridors to get to our room, I got a strange, Charles Ives-ian mix of music as each potential superstar raced to get to the next big thing, or paid tribute to what came before them. Thrash metal played next to a Creedence cover band; across the hall, something was happening that sounded like Pat Benetar meets Dashboard Confessional, and that was mixed with a bluegrass interpretation of "Sultans of Swing". Typical Thursday. The occasional introverted, hostile-eyed smoker would be lounging outside the door to their space, mastering the art of the "sensitive yet angry poet" look. I turned a few more corridors, and the racket quieted down. We had lucked out in our space, because most of our neighbors only played on the weekends, so we had the wing mainly to ourselves, with only a few other bands practicing when we were there. But it wasn't unusual to see other people hanging around, like the emo kid at the end of the hall. Barely old enough not to get carded for his clove cigarettes, probably had a fake ID. Dyed black hair and an outrageously priced haircut both hung in his face and jutted out from the back of his head. Skinny jeans, tight shirt, ripped sweater, Converse sneakers… The kid was a walking stereotype. He was standing with his back to the wall, eyes cast down at the floor.

I stopped at our door, pulling out my keyring, and I glanced back over at the kid. Still standing there, but now he was looking at me. His eyes were rimmed with red; at first I thought it was eyeliner, but it kind of just looked like he had been crying a lot. He had a look on his face like he was lost, utterly alone. I pulled the key from the lock on my door, and turned to face him directly. He looked like a wiseass douchebag, but that look did something to me. He just stared steadily at me as the door to what I guess to be his practice space opened, and two more kids stepped out into the hall. They were dressed the same way, precisely awkward hair, skinny everything, a mass of rubber gasket bracelets around their boney wrists. They walked over to the kid, who was still staring at me, and the one on the left put his hand on the kid's shoulder, tilted his head off to one side, and opened his mouth, wide.

A mass of sharp, jagged teeth jutted out from his gums, and he leaned forward and bit down on the kid's cheek. Blood splashed onto his face as he tore away at the kid, biting again and ripping off his ear. The one on the right grabbed the kid's arm, and, exposing the same wicked jaws, started chewing on the kid's forearm eagerly, getting tendons and bits of sweater caught in his impossible teeth. The kid hardly reacted to all of this, he just slid down the wall, the two savages following him down, tearing away at his neck, his chest. Blood splattered the wall, and began pooling at the floor, and the kid was still staring at me. His left cheek was gone, I could see his jaw and gum line sticking through. A huge chunk had been ripped out of his neck, and the arterial pulse was jetting red gouts of blood all over the thing that was clawing and chewing into his chest, rearing its head back to pull a particularly tough piece of flesh away from the kid's body.

A grunt passed between them, and they grabbed the kid's arms and dragged him back into the room with stilted, jerky movements. The door slammed shut, and I was alone in the hallway, blood smeared on the floor and the walls. In a day, it would just be another stain. I turned back to the lock on our door. Maybe this upcoming show was a lot more important than anyone had realized.

Well day 8(yesterday) was more scary. My stepmother seems to be srs tense and is now grabbin pills herself. I was awoken by her using the phone trying not to break down getting on to the doc. Unfortunately no one here is actually communicating and its like walking on eggshells. Then I went to visit the dog my family want to adopt, and his tail had a cone, and so did his head. This distressed the Murphy as being a gun dog breed he's a sniffer and so we went to play with him in the yard they have put aside for letting dogs off the lead and he was upturning the toy box and got exciteable. The cone on his head was almost trashed, and the tail one fell off. Murphy was still excited and bouncing around, then we noticed that there were red flecks on his fur, the tail was bleeding and his body became more and more red splattered. So the visit I had been looking forward to for days was cut short. And it seems my stepmothers BIP has got so small and rigid that it is in danger of slicing her like cheese wire. The first week was more like Telarus' thank you Mistress, gods know what the next 22 days are going to pan out as.

As cliché and tortured as the concept is, my wife and I like to go out on "date nights". We used the term as a joke to begin with, but that's what it is, at the core. We make an effort, at least once a week, to put things aside and go out to dinner, maybe a movie, maybe dancing. As long as it's different that how the week usually proceeds, then it suits its purpose.

For me, the whole point of this scheduled spontaneity is a simple one: I refuse to take her for granted. It may be that I sometimes over-learn my lessons, but I have fucked up far too many relationships in my past due to a very simple reason. I assumed that because of the fact that I was spending time with someone, this was adequate proof that I cared about them. Turns out, it doesn't really work that way. This may come as a shocking surprise, but people like it when you treat them as someone special, and they appreciate explicit actions and statements to that end.

And as it turns out, this creates a feedback loop. Just like those damn affirmations, if you are constantly in the habit of telling and showing someone that you care for them, you end up caring for them a lot more that you would otherwise. Of course, it's not a panacea. If something is broken, or if one person makes the other person miserable, it won't matter how often they say, "I love you." Effort has to be made from both sides. And just because you've gotten married doesn't mean you can stop making that effort. On the contrary, sometimes it means that you have to try harder. If it seems easier, that's just because you've found someone who doesn't make it a chore.

My wife and I are foodies, so we like going to new places to eat. Luckily, our city has gone through a culinary resurgence over the past decade or so, and the once dominant Steakhouse-and-Pub dinosaurs have been challenged by smaller, quicker, and more creatively elegant restaurants. The one we chose this time was nestled on the corner of a well-to-do neighborhood, only walking distance from my office. It only had about twelve tables, owing to a large private dining room in back that was reservation only, and was often booked weeks in advance.

Even though we thought we had gotten there early, it was already quite full of well-heeled Brahmins with pinched faces and fur wraps. Such were the occasional hazards of eating in the city. While we knew our jobs put us in a comfortable financial situation, these people were far out of our league. Diamond pendant necklaces gleamed in the candlelight, and the errant sip of wine dripped onto Armani suits. Sharp, judgmental eyes looked us up and down, classifying and labeling us as part of the ambitions and overreaching middle class, and were summarily dismissed from their minds. The wait staff seemed to pick up on this, and we were shown to a small table that was situated between the kitchen and the large doors leading to the private dining room, which had already been seated if the raucous laughter and bellowed conversations on the other side were any indication.

I know that tables like these are often considered low on the status totem pole, but I don't mind, because it often means I can see into the kitchen, and if the place is as good as its reputation, the chef shouldn't care which table he's creating the meal for. And boy, the chef didn't. The restaurant had a modified tapas concept, and the small plates that came out of the kitchen were amazing in both taste and technique. We kept trying to see into the kitchen, to make out what the chef was doing; not for nothing, we watch the Food Network for the same reason, to try to pick up/steal new ideas and skills that we can later use at home. I didn't have much luck, however. The tables were too low to see over the counter and onto the grills and butcher blocks. All we could see were the faces and the heads of the sous chefs as the prepped and constructed the meals. But my seat was facing the doors into the private dining room, which occasionally swung open as servers came and went.

The table in there was fairly large. It could sit about twelve, though there were only four seated around it tonight, two men and two women. The men were stocky, portly, fat… Or at least, they acted that way. The glimpses I got showed faces of gluttony, not just for food, but for all corporal wants and needs. The women had the tight, hard, hateful faces that only occur through forced denial and redirected ambitions. While they were all laughing and carrying on, as the door swung open and closed like a prehistorically slow camera shutter, their laughter never reached their eyes, pupils wide and darkly gleaming in the dim light. There was a roast of some kind in the middle of the table, with a large carving knife jutting from it. I couldn't tear my eyes from the short vignettes that developed before me, just a short distance away in that room.

Their mouths were shiny with grease and lipstick, their jaws chewing rhythmically, never letting up their mechanical grinding even as they laughed, harangued, or bloviated their way through the meal. Several bottles of wine were scattered along the table, and the glasses never fell below the halfway mark. I saw one of the men holding the carving knife, and stabbing the air with it, apparently trying to drive some conclusion home, before plunging it back into the roast, hacking off another piece.

I saw the woman to his right … cackling, that was the only word for it, her artfully penciled eyebrows in a cruel frown, lifting her glass as a bit of punctuation, as she let her tongue slide slowly from her mouth. It looked sharp, and was surprisingly long as it dipped into her wine glass, and then retracted slightly. The door closed again before I could confirm what I just saw. I glanced around at the other tables, suddenly unsure about the choice of restaurant we had made. The servers seemed to be oblivious to all that was going on in there, and kept moving in and out of the room, bringing water, more wine, and generally acting like the exemplary staff they were trained to be. The door opened again, and one of the men, mouth open with a tongue several feet long, was lapping at his plate. The other woman was grinning and leaned forward, her tongue springing from her mouth and stabbing into the roast, tearing off a chunk and wrapping around it like a tentacle to draw back into her mouth.

This was apparently a signal, and the men attacked the meat with their hands and tongues, ripping it to pieces and shoving it into their mouths. As the door swung closed again, I saw one of the men turn towards the woman on his right and lash his tongue around her neck. She uttered a choked shriek and clawed at his face with one hand, grabbing the carving knife with the other. Grabbing the check off the table, I helped my wife into her coat, and told her I'd pay up and meet her outside. I counted off a fistful of twenties and glanced once more through the doors. The room was a mess. One of the men had climbed onto the table and was crouched there, lapping at the remainder of his plate. One of the women was lying on the floor, her head twisted at an odd angle to her body, and the other woman was straddling the other man, stabbing him repeatedly in the chest with the knife. Then the door slowly swung closed again. I walked quickly to the exit, and we took a cab home. As we sat on the worn leather seats, I reached for my wife's hand, and gave her a soft kiss on her cheek. We rode the rest of the way in silence.

It's been raining a lot. I mean, a lot. Ever since Saturday. It hasn't been anything gentle, either. No soft spring showers to usher in a new season. No flowerbuds poking their heads out of the ground. Just a relentless, driving, cold rain. The kind of rain that blows sideways, so when you step outside icy needles jab into your face and fuck up your umbrella.

Not much to do on days like that. Reheat some leftovers, try to light a fire, and hide under your blankets. There's something malevolent, something insistent, about weather like that. It's offensive and rude to hear the hammering of raindrops on the window, but the insult is delivered by something so extraordinarily big, you can't do anything except mope, and pout. Weather like this just isn't fair. It's worse than impersonal. The rain is out to get you.

If you find yourself walking through rain like this, your mind tends to wander. To escape the constant cold, the drops like cold nails through your clothes, and the puddles that creep into your shoes, you start to think of anything other than what you're experiencing right now. I usually think about whatever music project I'm working on at the moment. I don't get as much time in front of the computer as I used to, what with my semi-voluntary work week and my entirely voluntary marriage, so I've found myself working things out in my head before I even sit down at my desk.

Perhaps a point of clarification here: I know I've chosen to work a desk job for a living, and that it is a choice. We've gone over this before, the choices and sacrifices to make, and I stand by my choice of economic stability over 100% artistic freedom to starve. But I could leave. I've proven from my personal history that I could live without the house and the organic whole grains and all that, so long as I was able to make music. At the same time I made the choice, however, I'm also forced to play by the rules that get me that stability; and that requires a six o'clock AM alarm and a forty-hour week, which I would change, if I could. But I can't, so… semi-voluntary.

My marriage, on the other hand, is entirely voluntary. I made the choice to spend the rest of my life with her, and for us that means mingling our lives. That also means you don't get to live an entirely individual life anymore. You need to make time for each other. Sometimes, that means not being in front of the computer for six hours, playing around with level differences of only one or two decibels. And that's entirely voluntary. So I think about what needs to be done ahead of time. I'm no Beethoven though. What I come up with while walking down the rainswept sidewalk is rarely what ends up happening in the studio. But like every creative project, those ideas usually offer up a stepping stone, useful (if for nothing else) to show what it shouldn't sound like.

So, that's what I was doing while walking in that shitty, awful weather. I was thinking about delay pedals, and putting distortion effects on reverb pedals, and whether I should compress before or after the EQ, and what kind of room the drums should be in, and I went ankle deep in a half-frozen puddle. Fuck. The road was next to the river leading down to the local pond – more of a stream really, except the weather had swollen it to the point it had broken the banks and made a run for the street. At which point, it successfully made it inside my shoe. I cursed again to myself, and headed for higher ground. Specifically, the bridge that arced over one corner of the pond, and led back to my condo. I kept my head down against the wind, which is why I didn't see her until I was already on my way up.

She looked like she was in college: At least, the grey hooded sweatshirt with Greek letters emblazoned on it, khaki shorts and flip-flops made that impression. That, and the fact she was wearing shorts and flip-flops in this weather were a good hint, too. Her hair was blonde, pulled back into a ponytail, and was absolutely soaked. She was standing at the apex of the bridge, facing out towards the pond. Not surprisingly, she was shivering. I kept walking up the bridge, wondering why she'd be out here on a day like this, dressed like that. I guess she must have caught my movement from the corner of her eye, because she turned her head to look at me, expressionless, then turned her head back and leapt from the edge of the bridge into the pond.

It was a graceful jump, her arms extended, and her body carved a smooth parabola in the rain. She pointed her toes, and one flip-flop came off, twisting and fluttering in the wind. As she descended, I looked down into the pond, thinking she might not have judged this right, but it looked like she was heading directly into the deepest part of this part of the pond. Which is when I saw the water surge, break apart, and the mouth opened up. It was almost circular, two giant arcs, ten feet in diameter at least. A stubby, blood red tongue twitched in that dark hole, framed by razor-sharp teeth. They weren't like a shark, triangular and sawtoothed, they were like needles. Huge, monstrous needles like giants would use to stick under the fingernails of other giants to get them to reveal state secrets.

The water in the pond was dark, and the rain made it impossible to see what was below the surface. All I could see was that mouth, and the descent of the girl, sweatshirt flapping, one bare foot, face calm and serene as she fell down towards that gaping maw.

Snap. Faster than my eyes could track it, the jaws closed on her falling body, the wicked teeth piercing her stomach and her back, slicing her in two. A dark gout of blood splashed into the pond, diffusing into the black waters. A twitch, and the other half of her had disappeared. Then the mouth, and whatever was behind it, slipped back into the depths of the pond. The rain continued to beat down on my head, getting under my collar, chilling the sweat that had broken out on my skin. I really wished I was home right now.

On the train again. The rains have stopped, but the effects remain. There was some pretty major flooding, which of course affected the already weak infrastructure of the public transportation system. It's hard to believe that something this crappy could still be losing money, even with the constant fare hikes.

I had managed to get a seat this time, and was trying to pass the time with a book. I couldn't concentrate, though. My eyes kept sliding off the page, seeming to prefer the flickering through the window of the tunnel lights as the train barreled past them. I closed them briefly, eager to get home and get dinner started. Call it another kind of escapism, if you want. It sure makes a good excuse not to go outside your house when you choose to spend a few hours preparing food. You can get as complex as you want with the techniques and ingredients, and really stretch it out. And once you start down the road of ingredients, any considerations of the outside world just fall away.

Sometimes, I just get lost in the knifework. Slicing, chopping, breaking down the food, all the prep work… well, I often think that's the most important part of cooking. The rest is just adding heat. When I have a vegetable, or piece of protein in one hand, and a knife in the other, I just zone in and shut out everything else, making my cuts, concentrating on the motion of the knife, and how the food is reacting to it. I was almost upset the day my wife picked up the same obsession and started doing some of the prep work along with me. But since I usually get home before she does, I get plenty of chances. Looked like today wasn't going to be one of those days, though.

The train had stopped just as it emerged from a tunnel after leaving the previous station. I could hear the faint hiss of the airbrakes, and then the distorted speakers crackled to life and a fairly bored voice announced, "Zzzzzdue to a sssssssssshhhhunknown problem on the trackzzzzzz we will be zzzzztanding bysssssshhhhhh momentarily." If you have ever been on these trains, you know that "momentarily" is a code for "really long". I sighed, and tried to go back to the book (if you must know, it was Guns, Germs, and Steel).

A few minutes went by, and the people on the train started to get restless. The cell phones came out, and the overly loud conversations started: Melodramatic bitching to invisible, imaginary friends on the other end of the line about how unfair and infuriating these trains are. Sure they're annoying, but you pretty much knew that when you got on, right? I complain about it, obviously, but the entire train doesn't need to hear histrionics about the whole thing. You use the subway, you plan for delays and fuckups. The voices and attention whore antics were so overwhelming, I almost didn't hear the explosions at first. They were faint, I suppose, but then again they had to compete with the walls of the train, and then the yammering of the people inside it. But they were there. With each concussion, I could feel it through the train's floor and into my feet, and there was no mistaking the sound. Then, a faint crackling of gunfire. As I was puzzling this out, the speaker overhead blared out, "Zzzzzzattention passengerzz: There issssshhh an obzzzztrucssshion on the trackzzzzahead. Pleazzzzsssssstandby as we correctzsh the problem."

I wasn't sure if the other passengers even noticed that there seemed to be a warzone happening just ahead of the train. If they did, they weren't showing it. They just kept blabbing away into their phones. Eventually, the battle sounds outside of the train stopped. It must have been about fifteen minutes after they ended that the train lurched forward again, to the exasperated relief of the passengers. We were only moving about five miles an hour, but we were at least moving.

I turned in my seat to look out the window, looking for any evidence of what I had been hearing. Crews of men in tough-looking coats and heavy boots were manipulating a water hose that was aimed at a large, smoking pile. As the train drew closer, I saw a human arm flop out of the pile, blackened and charred. One of the men, holding an axe, stepped up to the pile and with a determined swing, lopped the arm off, and kicked it back onto the heap. Water streamed along the ground from the pile, blackened and viscous. I stared as I saw things moving at the base of the bodies, small things, like worms, or slugs, but about a foot and a half long, and maybe an inch or two thick.

I looked around the train, but no one was looking outside. They were absorbed in their cellphone conversations, iPods, newspapers, and the primary-colored ads plastered on the walls of the subway car. Nothing was more important in their lives except them, and their petty inconveniences, their tired and worthless complaints. To them, the solipsistic trials and tribulations that they were forced to endure were paramount, and nothing could possibly be more interesting to anyone else in the world than what their next Facebook status update would be. I turned back to the window at what was going on outside.

There was a brief commotion from the crew as more of the things emerged from the bottom of the pile, squirming as if unused to the daylight. The train passed by not twenty feet from the mass of corpses, and I could see that one end of the slug things ended with teeth, like a lamprey. The crew dropped the hose as the slug things began to squirm in a particular direction; mainly, towards the crew of men. The man with the ax suddenly dropped to the ground – while he was chopping off that arm, one of those things must have attached itself to him, because it was now wrapped around his leg, above his boot, the mouth end attached firmly to his thigh. As the train continued on, leaving them behind, I saw more of the slug creatures slithering over to him. The speaker overhead squawked, "ZZZthank you for your patientzzzz. Nexsssht shhhhtop, City Centerzzzzz."

LMNO, I must say, I enjoy your detailed descriptions of life's routines and the mental states that go along with them. It somehow elevates the mundane above the mundane, or at least to a different plane in which all sorts of horror can happen.

LMNO, I want to say I just decided to catch up with all you wrote. I"m at work. My bladder is about to explode from not wanting to leave and I'm needing that meal I've got in the back pretty badly by now. Couldn't pull myself away. Excellent stuff.

So, I have a moustache. It's fairly substantial, a full-on Selleck, and I have every intention of getting a handlebar out of that fucker. It's getting there, but for now it's just one big bushy bastard. It all started when my wife got a necklace with a small Lucite cutout of a handlebar moustache. It's cute as hell, and we joked about how it emasculated me when she wears it, because, you know, moustache. Over the next few months, we joked about it with our friends, and I would say, "What do you think, should I grow a handlebar?" Well, I don't know if she realized it, but what it came down to is that she agreed to it on at least three separate occasions. That's a green light in my book.

Reaction to this experiment has been largely one-sided. Almost every guy I know really digs on the moustache. They love what I'm doing. On the other hand, only a few women are into it. Most of them just giggle and roll their eyes. However, the ones that like it really like it. I'm not sure why it breaks down like that. Are the guys seeing it as some prominent display of masculinity? Maybe just a defiance of convention? Perhaps I remind the guys of the Swedish Porn of their youth; a happier, simpler time when girls weren't made of silicone, and boys had never heard the word "manscape". Maybe the women realized what it would feel like kissing that prickly caterpillar of hair (and maybe one or two got turned on by it).

Sad to say, the wife is not a fan. She's sticking it out due to pride, and because she's got a good sense of humor and gets a kick seeing all her guy friends flipping out for it. Plus, I sold her on the idea of going to the beach in a 1920's bathing suit, handlebar standing proud. Anyway, the end result so far is that I look like either an undercover cop, or a cranky old Russian man. It tends to dominate the face, drawing most of the attention away from the rest of my face. Honestly, sometimes when I stumble into the bathroom just after waking up, I do a double-take in the mirror, thinking I'm wearing some sort of costume or disguise.

It came in handy yesterday, too. I was going to play a show that night, and I wanted to stop off at the local music store to pick up some sticks and a guitar stand for one of the other guys in the band. The place was a one-stop-shop. Guitars lined the wall on one side, drumsets were laid out across the floor, and there were separate rooms for keyboards and audio equipment. I wandered over to the guitars, looking for a cheap stand, and this guy approached me. He looked older than me, and was obviously the "faded rocker" type. Black denim jeans, a white T-shirt, leather vest, and hair that had been bleached, fried, and slept-on. I'm not sure if he thought he looked good, or if this was just the standard uniform for music store guitar salesmen. He asked with the eagerness of someone who works on commission, "Hey there! What can I help you get?"

I told him I was only there for a guitar stand, and he pointed one out which was cheap enough. I made to grab it, and then he said, "You know, you look familiar. You come in here a lot, don't you?"

There, right there, was when I knew something about this guy, thanks to the moustache. For starters, I go to that store only a couple of times a year, and I've only had this thing for a couple of months now, so there was no way in hell he actually recognized me. The guy was feeding me a line, trying to game me. I shook my head, put down the stand, and said, "Nah, I'm not around that much. Just, you know, picking up a few things."

"No, man, I know you. Watchmaker."

"Excuse me?"

"Watchmaker. Sealing wax." His eyes didn't look ok. They were a pale blue, but the whites around it had a dirty yellow tint, and were shot through with blood vessels. He opened them wider. "Heavy. Heavy water overload."

I stepped back and looked around, but it seemed that this part of the store was empty. "Well, ok, I'm just gonna get this then…"

"Anthropoid! Delta Delta! With the anticipation and the damage." His jaw was clenched tightly, grinding his teeth together. Maybe he was on some weird coke binge, or something. I tried to step around him, doing my "deferring monkey" dance, trying to avoid whatever kind of crazy he was living through. "Murky! Asphalt dreams for the new kingdom of paperclip," he leered, cutting me off. His lips had drawn back tightly against his gums, and I could see his teeth in a stained grinding grin.

"Damn the man, damn the man, damn the man, damn the man, kill the king and swim away," he hissed. His right hand tightened into a fist, and he started beating it against his thigh, in time with his words. "Beasts of prey and feast to pray – and beatings to all who stay." He took a step forward, and I heard a cracking sound. One of his pre-molars had snapped under the strain of his jaw, leaving a jagged stump that oozed blood onto his lower lip, and out the corner of his mouth.

"Have you come to end the game and wind the watch to say the name to-which-we-will-all-play and play and play and pay and pay to stay –"

He lunged at me and I jumped back, right into the wall full of guitars. I turned, grabbing a Les Paul sunburst by the neck, and swung around, the gorgeous Bigsby tailpiece catching him square on the side of the head with a crunch. Two more of his teeth shattered, and his lacerated scalp sprayed blood across the wall. He dropped to the floor, limbs twitching. His tongue snaked out to lick his bloody lips, and his teeth clamped down again, severing it cleanly as a butcher. Blood welled from his mouth as he ranted incoherently, his right eye becoming completely red from the burst veins. I dropped the guitar and leapt over the body, wiping my hands on my jeans and heading for the door. Next time, I'm going to Guitar Center. Fuck the additional cost.

LMNO, I want to use this stuff in the Audio Book of the Dead later, if you're interested.

Forgetful or just trying to make sure the message got through?

Senile.

ok :)I find it fascinating that people under 30 say they are forgetful or had too much to drink in the meantime, but people over 30 say they are getting old or senile :PIn reality it is more a matter of focus and interest in 99.9% of the cases.

back on topic:i got sexytime about two weeks ago, and recently found out she gave me an STD.It's cured now, but damn you eris!

I was a little nervous the night of our show. I usually am, whenever I'm gonna do something extroverted in public. The excitement always drowns it out, but it's been there for as long as I can remember. It may be trite to say that it's a fear of rejection, but that feels right to me. You're going in front of strangers, even a bunch of friends, and you're going to offer your talent to them. You want them to love what you do as much as you do, but there's a greater fear that they will mock you, judge you, and abandon you.

Some have said that Punk was a way of turning the tables, of giving the audience the finger, making the relationship adversarial, that it created a situation where audience approval wasn't needed. I disagree. Punk merely had a different target, and the people receiving the abuse were part of the show, not the audience. Punk still had a fan base, and it soon became clear (even as far back as '78) that the original fear of rejection dynamic still existed between the bands and the fans.

Coming up through the years, I came to the conclusion early on that people may not like what I did, but I was the one up there doing it. I was certainly aware that I wasn't even close to the best drummer in the world; hell, I usually wasn't even the best drummer in the club that night. But if people didn't like what I was playing, they were more than able to start their own band. I was never embarrassed with what I was performing, so I was always confident that this is what I wanted to do, whether it was art-punk, shoegazer electro-pop, free noise, tribal goth, fetish industrial, or indie rock.

(As an exception to the rule, there was one performance where I was embarrassed by the material, and turned out to be a mortifying disaster; but it wasn't musically related, and besides, that's another story entirely.)

We were pretty psyched to play this club. It wasn't that big a show, but it was the first time the band as a whole got a decent sound system, and a guy behind the board who knew what he was doing. Our shows to that point had consisted of smaller bars that had a PA for vocals, and that was it. They were noisy, messy affairs, with feedback and level issues that robbed us of a really good sound. I could say that it helped us, though, as we had to pull back and listen to each other more, tighten up, and (believe it or not), learn to play softer. It's harder than it sounds, and counterintuitive to The Rawk. But if everyone keeps turning the volume knobs higher, it becomes a huge fucking mess – which is great if that's the sound you're going for. But sometimes intensity is measured in the interplay between the instruments, and in the dynamic and song arc. Having a soundman who could hear what things sounded like on the other side of the mics can be fairly important in that way.

We're all pretty laid-back people, so sound check was easy enough. No one was trying to pull "more me" ego-wanking games with the monitors, or complicating matters by tweaking their sound for half an hour while everyone waits around until the exact distortion frequency is reached. There wasn't much more to do except wait until showtime. So, we had a couple of beers, it being a bar and all. The place slowly started to fill up, and some of our friends made their appearances, which was nice. If we drew a big enough crowd, the booker for the club wouldn't be wary of asking us back. It was getting near time to play, so I headed towards the back to take a piss. It sucks to be playing a show with a full bladder. Distracting, you know?

The bathroom was typical rock club: A urinal, a stall next to it with a full toilet, never used as such due to the… residue… that collects around toilets when dozens of guys use it every night. Plus, there was no door on the stall, and a lot of guys don't really want to be taking a shit while being watched. The tiled floor was damp and smelled faintly of bleach, the only concession towards "cleaning" the staff made. As usual, best to touch as few things as possible. I stepped up to the urinal as a guy walked in behind me and went into the stall. The splashing sound proved he wasn't pee shy, and apparently he didn't have very good aim, either. I finished, buttoned up, and turned to the sink, wondering which was cleaner, the faucets or my dick? I had decided that, in fact, it would be more sanitary not to wash my hands and turned to go, when I heard the guy mutter, "What the fuck?"

I didn't want to look, but then I heard him grunt in pain, and I had to turn back. I saw a tentacle coming out of the toilet, and had grabbed the guy straight in the crotch. The tentacle was a dark eggplant color, purple-black, with suckers running along the underside. With a crash, the toilet lid hit the floor as another tentacle emerged from the tank, and shot out at the guy's head like a whip. His white baseball cap flew off as the tentacle wrapped around his neck, choking off his cry of pain as the tentacle in his crotch writhed and pulled. Drops of blood were staining his faded jeans as the suckers grasped for purchase, and then lifted him off the ground and slammed him into the wall.

Another tentacle emerged from the bowl, and wrapped around his left arm. His face was bright red from being strangled and suspended in the air, and his eyes were wide, bugged out. There was a tearing sound as the tentacle around his arm pulled, and separated the sleeve of his denim jacket from his body. Along with his entire arm. The guy jerked and flopped in agony while the tentacle tried to drag his severed arm into the toilet bowl. Blood rained down onto the floor and a fourth tentacle came out of the tank, wrapping around his waist. His body was thrown to the floor, and then tossed into the air again, the tentacles ripping at his skin. The bathroom looked like a slaughterhouse, and I finally saw the light go out in his eyes, his body going limp.

The tentacle in his crotch finally seemed to tear through, and shoved itself into his abdomen. His stomach distended and bulged. It pulled out, the very end having wrapped itself around his intestines, which extended now from his crotch like an obscene pull-string for some gruesome doll. I heard a tearing, popping sound, and the guy's head fell to the floor, and rolled under the toilet, coming to rest in the palm of his severed arm. I slowly backed out of the bathroom, trying not to call any attention to myself, when I felt someone grab me. I spun around, face to face with my bassist. "Come on," he said, "We're on. Let's rock this fucker."

After work, I decided to head to this Greek restaurant my friends had been telling me about. There was apparently a live band that played some really excellent traditional music, and the food was said to be superb. Well, why the hell not? I could use a few glasses of wine and some good music. When I was young, my parents took me to Greece, and I remember having a great time visiting the ruins where the myths supposedly took place, like the place where Persephone was dragged down to the underworld by Hades, or the palace of King Minos. It was also one of the first times I got drunk on cheap wine, which is something I will always almost remember.

The restaurant was a bit outside the city proper, tucked away in an alley off a main thoroughfare where cars sped by, racing between major population centers, disregarding anything they had to pass through on their way between what they considered "culture". The door was sheltered by a dark green awning trimmed with white Christmas lights framing the name of the place, "Prosechō". I walked in and was immediately greeted by the smells of a wood-fire grill, and the sound of a bouzouki in the hands of a skilled player, winding out a complex melody. I was seated up near the musicians, and ordered a glass of red wine as I took the menu.

They had all the traditional Mediterranean fare, and some more interesting foods as well. I ordered some grilled smelts, soujuk (a spicy dry sausage), some grape leaves wrapped around rice and ground lamb, and sat back to watch the band play. In addition to the bouzouki, there was a clarinet player who had a fairly serious delay pedal stretching his sound to the farthest reaches of what could be considered normal, and a drummer who was throwing in solid, heavy beats to drag it all back down to earth. On top of all that, the bouzouki player would also sing melodies in a language that I thought sounded Greek, though I couldn't be sure; all I could tell was that this was all wrapped up in a musical tradition far older than any music you usually hear these days. I was startled as the air burst into flame beside me, and then I grinned – they were serving halloumi, an extremely firm cheese with a high melting point that allows it to be doused with ouzo or brandy and set on fire, charring it. The staff here obviously knew how to put on a show, so they were in the habit of adding more alcohol than was strictly needed, sending flames several feet into the air. What next?

As it turns out, dancers. Every so often, a young woman in traditional belly dancing garb would emerge from a doorway and display particular skills in movement and flexibility to the delight of the crowd, a mix of men and women (but there seemed to be quite a few older men). In what was explained to me as a traditional Greek tradition, if you liked what the dancer was doing, you could give them money; however, there was an art to it. Everyone seemed to have a different way of doing it, whether throwing it in the air, or rapidly dealing it off a stack of ones, or holding two bundles of it and letting it slip through your fingers. It was interesting to watch how, depending on how they offered the money, the meaning seemed to change. Sometimes it was a celebration of the music and the dance, and sometimes it got a little creepy and demeaning, like a strip club, a literal "money shot" in the girl's face. The floor was eventually covered in cash like confetti after a parade, the band never missing a beat, the dancer's feet sure and confident. I was feeling pretty mellow after several glasses of wine and a belly full of fish and meat, and I settled in to see the rest of the show

The tempo slowed, and a wizened old man stepped up to the mic. He was thin, with a long beard. He closed his dark, glittering eyes, and opened his mouth to let out a long, low wail of a note. Where the music before was old, this sounded ancient. The clarinet came in as a harmony, and the interplay with the old man's voice was haunting. The drummer laid down a throbbing pulse, and the bouzouki plucked out a polyrhythmic pattern that both pulled the beat forward and laid it firmly into the ground. The dancer, meanwhile, had slowed her movements as well, and now was moving simply, gently bending her arms into soft shapes and gracefully twirling her hips. Her half-lidded eyes looked around the room, resting on a large man in a white linen suit. She glided over to him and slipped a veil off of her shoulders, playfully wrapping it around his neck. With a leer he stood up, and she stepped lightly backwards, leading him to the center of the floor.

He seemed to know whatever eons-old song was playing, moving his feet with an agility and grace that belied the bulk he was carrying on his frame. A few rapid arpeggios from the bouzouki brought the pace up, and the young girl weaved suggestive steps around the man, who gave a predatory grin as his feet never stopped their insistent tattoo, matching the rhythms of the band exactly. Sweat beaded up on his forehead, and he hunched forward slightly. The girl dropped to her knees facing the audience, her back to the man whose suit jacket bulged out between his shoulders, tearing at the seam running down the back to expose a chitinous shell-like surface. With a look of concentration, she slowly rose from her knees as if in slow motion, her arms spreading wide as, behind her, the man's suit split open from the sides as hundreds of insectoid legs sprang out, waving in time to the music, which had grown in intensity, dissonant notes now arguing with the insistent melody. The man's head was rolling in circles on his neck, and his mouth opened wide, then stretched wider as a pair of mandibles forced their way out.

The old singer let out a sharp cry, and the creature's legs grabbed the girl from behind and with a single movement, tore her filmy costume from her body. She let out a gasp as her firm breasts swung free in the air, her nipples hard and pointed. The band was playing furiously now and the clarinet wailed as the girl continued dancing, lost in the moment. Her bare hips swayed and twitched and her stomach undulated to the unearthly music. The creature behind her reared up towards the ceiling and swooped down upon her again. But this time, her eyes rolled back into her head in ecstasy and let a moan escape her throat as the centipede legs didn't wrap around her, but plunged into her skin, burrowing in her torso.

The old bearded man was shrieking into the mic as the drummer began a crescendo of rhythms, each competing with the other for dominance, and the bouzouki player's fingers were a blur of movement, shards of notes thrown into the air like broken pieces of glass. The dancer started to shake as the legs dug deeper into her body, rivulets of blood dripping down her muscular legs. The music, amazingly, continued building in intensity until all the sounds converged into a single, torturous sound that seemed to last an eternity. And then, as if a switch were thrown, they went silent.

No one moved.

I thought I had gone deaf, except I could hear the girl panting, as if she was nearing an mind-blowing orgasm. Then, with a groan, the creature threw his dozens of legs open, ripping the girl in half. Blood sprayed into the air like a red cloud. Her ribs had broken away, and she was completely exposed, her organs spilling out onto the floor like cattle in a slaughterhouse. With a cheer from the crowd, handfuls of money were thrown into the air, heavy with smoke from the halloumi and thick with the smell of fresh blood. Her body fell to the floor, among the piles of money coated and spattered with blood, with more bills fluttering down on top of her, sticking to her skin. The overhead lights dimmed, and I was approached by a waiter, who handed me my check, thanking me for coming in. Next time, maybe I'll just order a pizza.

"So, we'll table this and take it off line to brainstorm some solutions that have impact on the metrics."

I hate that kind of language, but I have to admit that there's a skill to it. You have to run that fine line between sounding professional and spinning a complete load of bullshit. Most people can't do it without sounding like complete tools, but it seems like everyone has to do it sooner or later in this job. I've come to the conclusion that everyone knows how ridiculous it sounds, but not everyone knows why it needs to be done. A lot of my co-workers just parrot the phrases that get hurled at them, but they aren't just learned affectations, because no one uses them during normal communication. They are signifier words that are used during SNAFU Principle situations.

The SNAFU Principle, as a quick reminder, is the idea that communication can only occur between equals. The greater a power difference appears between two people, the more difficult it is to exchange accurate information. So, because normal communication cannot happen easily in a power structure like the one I work in, a stilted and awkward form of speech is used to signify the difference in status, and the recognition that official communication is now occurring. In this way, the party higher up says, "this is serious official stuff and not fluff, so pay attention," while the lower party says, "I know you don't usually listen to me, but this is vital to the task at hand." In both cases, the prevalent message is, "I consider this message important enough to alter my language use." But like I said, some people overuse it, and misuse it, and make me want to shoot myself.

I gathered up the various papers passed my way during the meeting with a smirk of wry amusement, and headed for the conference room door, where I almost ran headfirst into Amanda. She was a short, blonde, busty woman who was perky in ways that seemed almost sinister. She was one of those people who honestly seemed to like their job, regardless of what it was. She could spend the whole day alphabetizing a file drawer, and still have a chipper grin plastered to her face. I wasn't sure if it was something to be respected for not succumbing to the tedium, pitied because they drank the kool-aid, or feared for their relentless cheer.

"Are you going to be at the Wii bowling tournament for lunch today?" She looked as if she was honestly curious, but at the same time it sounded like more of a command than a question. Amanda was on the "Fun Committee," and aspect of corporate life that annoyed me almost more than the job itself. The concept was that we, the employees, should enjoy ourselves at work more. Well, yeah. However, we, the employees, are obviously unable to judge for ourselves what we would enjoy. So, in order to avoid any gaffes or faux pas made during the pursuit of entertainment, a Committee was formed to give us our Fun. So we get cookie sales, theme days, and the kind of Wii tournaments usually found in rest homes. I have taken to calling them "The Ministry of Fun™" which really does amuse me, since no one has caught on the fact I'm parodying 1984, not Monty Python. I mumbled something about being really busy with the caseload and hurried down the hall. She called out behind me, "The winner gets a five dollar coupon for the cafeteria!" and I ducked into a supply room.

It was a little dim in there. The overhead light was out, and the small window high on the opposite wall was prevented from letting in most of the daylight because of the building next door. The shelves were stacked high with reams of paper, toner cartridges, boxes of staples, and cocoons. Cocoons? Lined up in a neat row were a series of tightly woven bundles about three feet high and roughly oval. I stepped closer in the dim light, and saw there were more stashed behind a stack of manila folders and crates of rubber bands. And behind a shelf that stored an army of three-ring binders, I could see that a hole had been chewed into the wall. A fairly large hole. I took another step closer, and crouched next to one of the cocoons, keeping one eye on the hole. Up close, the cocoon was an irregular shape, and the threads that wrapped around looked like glistening silk. I grabbed a Papermate pen from a half-opened box, and gently poked it. The tip slid through the threads easily, and then hit something soft. I tried to push some of the silk out of the way, and it was sticky to the touch. Then the thing twitched, and I saw something glint in the gap I had just made. Something gold. Like a wedding ring. I backed away quickly, dropping the pen, wiping my hand on my pants, and I heard a skittering sound coming from the large hole in the wall. A large skittering. Large enough to make that hole, to be sure. I made a dash for the door, quickly closing it behind me.

"You know, if you need more supplies, you should really ask Barbara. She knows where everything is. See you at lunchtime?" Amanda gave me a cheerful wink, and strode off, back to her desk. After a pause, I headed towards the bathroom to get the residue off my hands, wondering what everyone will say when I tell them that I've never played on a Wii before.

There's been a lot said about what gets you out of bed in the morning. That first moment where something wakes you up against your will (for those out there who wake up whenever you damn well please and feel smug about it, just wait. Your time will come), what is it that puts your feet on the ground, and pulls your head up? Usually these questions are phrased in order to get you thinking about big picture things, and have answers like "my kids," "the rent," "because I love my job" (note: that last one is rare), or something bigger than you, which is fine. Of course, once you get to work, you hit your rhythm (or you spend the day trying to find it). But the thing is: Between the motivation that gets you out of bed, and the motivation that keeps you from walking out of your job, there is a period of time where you're in transit. Between the bed and the desk. How long does that initial motivation last, and where is the transition between the two?

Sitting on the morning train, I looked around at my fellow commuters, watching for that transition. Some had already made it, might have made it from the moment they walked out the front door. They were checking their Blackberries, knuckles white around the handles of their briefcases, first at the doors as they slid open. I was more the kind of person that didn't really deal with it until I was actually in the office. I stowed my book in the front pocket of my shoulder bag, and followed the rest of the crowd off the train, and out into the street, and into what's become a familiar commotion.

The streets in the Financial District are a little tight. Though there was an expressway that barreled through the heart of the city, the surface streets were originally designed in an era where the phrase "ridiculously huge car" didn't exist, and so weren't quite able to handle the slow crawl of Escalades, Hummers, and Durangos that tried to make their way to one of the few parking spots available in the Downtown area. Add to this the inevitable selfishness of a driver who doesn't actually want to be going to work, combined with a severe lack of coffee, and you get double-parking temporary roadblocks scattered throughout the city. Because of all this, the air was filled with a choir of car horns, as if no one was aware that stopping your Chrysler Hemi in the middle of a one-lane street that led to one of the only downtown access ramps for the expressway to rush inside a 7-11 to get a pack of cigarettes was, in fact, rude. The guy in the car right behind it, a small Civic, was particularly incensed. A small guy, to be sure, but his face was almost purple with rage, and even with the windows rolled up, you could hear him bellowing curses at the truck blocking his way.

When the Chrysler driver came out with his smokes, it got even worse. Civic grabbed the wheel and started rocking back and forth, shaking the entire car. This caught Hemi's eye, along with the half-dozen gestures Civic was throwing his way. Hemi turned and walked towards Civic, and I could tell this would probably not end well. Hemi was a big guy, and from his paint-splattered brown pants and tattered flannel shirt, probably worked construction at one of the many sites around town that were in a constant cycle of demolition and rebuilding. Scowling, he bent at the waist next to Civic's window, and tapped on the glass. "You got a problem?"

The window exploded outwards, as Civic's hand burst through the glass and grabbed Hemi by the throat. I could hear him clearly now, his voice rising above the horns. "THERE-IS-NO-TIME-NO-SPACE-NO-MOVEMENT!" Civic yanked his hand back, still clutched around Hemi's neck, driving his face into the top of the car door, smashing his nose flat. Hemi stumbled backwards, one hand to his face as blood flowed from his nose, down his chin. Civic thrust himself through the window and pulled himself out of the car, rather than simply opening the door. He dropped to the street, the sprang up, catching Hemi straight in the chest with his left shoulder and sent him stumbling back about three feet against the side of the building. Another leap, and Civic had Hemi's head between his hands, and proceeded to smash it against the wall.

"NO-END-NOT-DONE-NO-EXIT-NEVER-DONE-CAN'T-STOP-DON'T-END-NO-NEVER-DONE-EXIT-CAN'T-END-DON'T-" He kept chanting in time to his pounding. A widening splotch of red blossomed on the wall, and Hemi's head got softer as the skull cracked and pulped under Civic's hands. Civic then began to jam his knee into Hemi's crotch, screaming, "SHE-WON'T-LET-ME-GO-SHE-WON'T-SHE-WON'T-SHE-WON'T-LET-GO--" He paused, and looked around. He let go of Hemi, who slid down the wall, a smear of blood and hair tracking his progress. The rage in Civic's eyes cleared, though it didn't look like it was replaced by clarity. He stared off into the distance, slightly above the horizon. "She stopped," he muttered to himself, and then took off in a sprint towards the expressway access ramp. Without a single look back at the body on the sidewalk, and without hesitation, he vaulted over the barrier and dropped out of sight, and twenty feet straight down onto the expressway.

Well, not exactly onto the expressway. On the news later, it was said that he dropped onto a car going about 70 mph, which killed him instantly and also caused a thirteen-car pileup and shutdown traffic into the downtown area for the rest of the day, as emergency crews tried to clean everything up. You know, there's a reason I take the train into work.

The virtual stack of files was getting to be too much. Pixels on the screen have a weight, when you know what's behind them. A list of eight-number strings looks innocuous, until you know that each string contains twenty minutes of work. So when you check your "inbox" and the mainframe comes back with a screen filled with numbers, it's like the ceiling just shrank, and the entire building is resting on your shoulders.

So I took a break. And by "break", I mean I headed off to lunch. At a bar. Would you think less of me that I ordered a beer with my burger? I mean, that does violate at least two social norms: Drinking Alone, and Drinking At Work. At least one will get you fired, too. Technically. But that magical word, "productivity", once again makes an appearance, and saves the day. So I thought of my numbers that week, and had no problem ordering a pint, and opening up my book.

Who reads at a bar? I do. I'm usually not that interested in Sportscenter or Bloomberg, especially without volume or closed captioning. And since I'm alone, I do what comes naturally. I read. This is one of the reasons I usually score as an "Introvert" on Myers-Briggs. It's not like I can't engage and get all social with strangers and friends, it's just that my default setting is to be by myself. Some people are surprised at this, because they see me as friendly and outgoing. And I suppose I am… when I have to deal with people. But if I don't have to deal with them, I'd much rather they left me alone, so I can read.

The guy next to me didn't seem to feel the same way. He had a plate of steak tips and fries in front of him, along with a bottle of beer and a shot of whiskey. He was dressed neatly enough, a blue button-down shirt with sleeves rolled up, khaki pants, loafers. But he was violating one more social norm than I was. He was Drinking Alone, Drinking At Work, but more importantly, he was Drunk. He was also looking around, trying to find someone to latch onto and talk with. He tried flirting with the bartender a few times, but she had that learned skill of the polite brush-off. So he leaned over to me and asked, "Hey… what'cha reading?"

"Um… Well, it's called The Mass Psychology of Fascism." As usual, this got me one of "those" looks. The kind that size you up as some sort of intellectual elitist, probably gay, possibly dangerous in a tearing-at-the-fabric-of-our-society kind of way.

"You're reading that for fun?"

"Sort of, yeah."

"Whas' it about?"

"It's about why Russian Communism failed, and why Post World War One Germany turned to National Socialism and Nazis."

"All of it." He gestured at the bar around him, possibly at the entire world. "Everything. Goin' to Hell. Can't escape it."

"No escape. You sure about that?"

"SURE, I'm sure." He grabbed his fork, jammed it into a lump of steak. "Stands to reason. Nothing can last. It all just… Falls apart." He chewed on a bit of cartilage, and fell silent.

"Sure, it falls apart. But that's why you wear a helmet."

"No, no helmets. You jus'…" He grabbed the beer, took a swig. "…let it happen to you. Nothin' you can do about it." Grabbed the fork again, twirled it in the air. "Iss like…"

"Can't you just take the pieces and build something else?"

He rested one arm against the bar, leaned towards me, and said, "Who's gonna help you? Ev'ryone, out for themselves. 'S not fair, you know. You look like you work hard, you know what I mean."

"But I don't work hard just to work. I work hard so I can leave work, and do something else."

"But you hav' to come in th' next day, and do it all over again. Iss like, iss like this," as he jabbed his fork back down into his steak. Wait. That wasn't his steak. That was his arm. I flinched at the site of the tines sticking out of his forearm, but he didn't. "Like this," he repeated, as he twisted the fork, tearing a small hunk of flesh off and jamming it in his mouth. "See?"

"Hey, you… you…" I trailed off as he jabbed his fork into the same place, digging deeper. His fingers twitched as he hit some sort of tendon or muscle, and rivulets of blood dripped out onto the bar. His other hand pulled, trying to twirl the fork around, ripping deeper, and then jamming it back into his mouth. His teeth were stained red as he glared at me.

"Thass all you need to know 'bout that," he declared, and jammed the fork back into his arm and working it between his radius and his ulna. He hit some sort of vein, because dark blood was pulsing out of the wound and soaking into his pants, and large drops had splashed onto his shirt. He looked down at the fork protruding from his arm, and back at me. "Gotta go," he said, throwing some bills on the bar and standing up shakily from his seat. I watched him walk out the door, a trail of blood following him. I was pretty sure no one at work would notice if I ordered another beer. Somewhere else, maybe.

In which I show myself as Elitist. Yeah, I went to see Shakespeare. I know, a play, right? Who does that these days, anyway? Certainly not anyone else under the age of forty, if what I saw was any indication. Not to knock the audience, though. Most of them looked like they honestly wanted to be there, and the actors needed to get paid somehow. I did see some of the pretentious elites wandering through the crowd, the scarecrow-faced women with gaudy furs, or bearded Cambridgian men carrying carefully tattered leather briefcases and sporting shoes polished to a high shine.

I suppose it was understandable why Youth wasn't there. What teen wants to spend a Friday night cooped up in a theater with people their parents' age, trying to figure out archaic speech patterns and complex narratives? Since an anime convention was in town, I'm sure they were hanging out with like minded peers, trying to piece together half-understood Japanese dialog from the multi-linear non-sequitor plots of various cartoons.

That was a joke. You laugh now.

The point being, I've never been that interested in Anime, and one of my friends was in the play and comped me tickets, so why not? And I happen to like Shakespeare, especially when it's not A Midsummer Night's Dream or Romeo and Juliet, which have been done to death. No, this was Othello, which can usually be fun if done right. After all, it's got interracial sex, manipulation, jealousy, drunken fights, domestic abuse, and murder! Kind of like an MTV reality show, but with a bit more emotional depth. Although, Ye Olde Shore of Newe Jerfey would probably have made The Bard a lot of cash, back in the day.

I took my seat in the balcony, the house lights went down, the stage lights came up, and we're off. The director had decided to stage the production in a sort of modified theater in the round, with the main stage at floor level to the audience, and surrounded. There were a few pieces of modular risers that served as various props and staging, but there wasn't much more than that; apparently the director was hoping the immediacy and proximity of the actors would take precedence over any sort of fancy props or set design.

The play starts in the middle of a conversation, as if it had begun several minutes earlier, and we're thrown into the intrigue headfirst. I usually need a few minutes to get into the rhythm of the language, but even so, it was a little hard to get into it this time. After a few minutes, it became clear why: The actor who played Iago sucked. That's about when I started getting pissed.

The most common interpretation of the play these days is that it may be about the tragedy of Othello, but it's really Iago's play. He's the main driver, the sole manipulator and conniver of the whole plot. Hell, he has more lines than anyone else in the play, and he's just pure evil. His only mistake in the whole play was thinking that the bonds between him and his wife were stronger than between his wife and Desdemona. If she had been even half as duplicitous as he (think Goneril from Lear), Iago would have ended up as the ruler of Cyrpess. Sounds like the kind of dark, villainous, Joker-like role any decent actor would love to get his teeth into, right? Not this guy.

He wasn't acting, he was just reciting. Whereas Othello and Desdemona had gripping and emotional scenes of love, jealousy, and hate, Iago was just weak. He wasn't sneaky at all, he was wooden and stiff. When the various characters would call him "honest Iago" (a thematic riff throughout), it wasn't because he was tricking them, it was because the other characters were apparently too stupid to see through his plotting. The acting was like nails on a blackboard. I spent much of the play alternating between anger and exasperation, going so far as wishing Iago would shut the hell up and get off the stage so Othello could kill his wife and I could go to the bar. At last, mercifully, the last lines were spoken, sentencing Iago to be carried off and tortured: "To you, lord governor, / Remains the censure of this hellish villain; / The time, the place, the torture: O, enforce it!" At these words, a shout went up from the audience below me.

I peered over the railing to see an old woman in the front row standing up, a purse in one hand, and a cane in the other. She was joined by a handful of other seniors, who lurched out onto the center of the floor, and grabbed Iago. "Let us!" the old woman cried, and smacked him in the head with her cane. The actor staggered back as two old men lunged to grab his arms before he fell. "Let the chorus judge him!" they yelled to the audience, many of whom had also stood, and shouted back, "Yes! Judge him!" while clambering over their chairs to get onto the stage.

Stunned, Iago protested, "Now, wait a minute—" but his words were cut off as the handle of the old woman's cane caught him square in the teeth. "No more from you, sonny," she said, "no more. Ever." Another audience member approached from behind, taking off his necktie, and rolling each end in his fists. He wrapped the Armani garrote around Iago's neck and pulled tight and the young actor's eyes bulged as he strained against his captors. A man dressed like a school teacher carefully folded up his eyeglasses, placed them in his breast pocket, adjusted his stance, and then kicked Iago straight in the groin. The man restraining his left arm lifted his gleaming Italian leather shoe, and drove it into the side of Iago's knee with a loud crunch, and let go of his arm, letting him drop to the ground.

A thin woman in a sequined evening dress stomped on his chest, her stiletto heel driving deep into his body and sending up a spurt of blood into the air. Another got down on her knees, grabbed his ears, and started banging his head into the floorboards, her white hair falling into her face, the ends dragging in the pool of blood gathering beneath his damaged body. More audience members poured onto the floor, shouting accusations and recriminations at the prostrate body, trying to kick him, throwing programs and crumpled ticket stubs at him, goading those closest to hit him, hurt him, spit on him. Two men grabbed Iago's ankles and began dragging him out towards the main doors, and the rest of the audience followed, howling madly. In a minute, the theater was empty. I left quietly through one of the back exits, thankful I was only interested in being a musician. Acting is tough.

It's not every day you get to meet someone you've only seen on movie and TV screens. But to do so while getting free drinks is something you simply can't say no to. So, my wife and I were really eager to hit up this meet-and-greet with Mink Stole, sponsored by Maker's Mark.

What do you mean, "Who's Mink Stole?" She's been in every single one of John Waters' movies so far, a triumph from the school of "act like everything has an exclamation point at the end". She parlayed a movie career from abandoning all sense of self-censorship, and has become a respected name in the universe of deviant cinema – so much so that she was to be given a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Boston Underground Film Festival.

Anyway, we were invited, and were excited to meet her and consume free whisky drinks. It was another moment for the moustache to shine, so we tried to look spiffy, and I got the lip caterpillar waxed up. The ends had just started to get long enough, and I was able to coax a slight curl out of them, sufficient to get the point across at least.

As it turned out, we weren't the only ones who wanted to see her. Well, obviously. But we weren't exactly prepared for the sea of hipsters we waded into when we approached the lounge. Textbook cases of the Late Twenties Outsider filled the place, sleeveless flannels and Caucasian dreadlocks and wallet chains and skinny jeans and ripped fishnets and tattoos that were only a few years away from being regrettable.

I should have realized that the Art School students would come rushing out to this. It was the Underground Film Festival, after all, and they were probably still pushing the same black-and-white 16mm "re-imagining" of Psycho from the perspective of the stuffed bird in Norman Bates' office that they hacked together for their final project, and resting their henna'd laurels on the B+ they got from their Senior Advisor.

Most of them hadn't learned basic etiquette yet, as they pushed and shoved their way to the bar, waving their drink tickets like traders on the floor of the exchange, and not tipping the bartenders after pushing the sodden scrap of paper at them, then just standing there, not allowing the thirsty ones behind them access. I had my own method, which consisted of going off to one side, being polite, and tipping heavily on the first few drinks. There's something to be said for experience.

Soon enough, the music died down, and an overloaded speaker blared out, "Are you ready for MINK!?" The crowd roared in response. "She's in back, getting ready, so you better give it up for this legend of outlaw cinema!" A collective metallic scratching sound swelled from all around me, and as the MC bellowed, "HERE SHE IS! MINK STOLE!" I looked around to see everyone had unzipped their pants.

She appeared, an unassuming 60-year old in a red blazer and black slacks. She looked like she could be the wife of an ambitious Assemblyman in the Baltimore political scene. But the crowd pushed forward, crowding around her. "Mink, Mink!" they cried, reaching down with one hand and towards her with the other. Startled, she drew back, but they pressed in closer.

"Mink! We love you!" a kid in front shouted out, grunted heavily a few times, and then dropped to the floor, his body jerking. The crowd packed in tighter, twitching, moaning. A viscous fluid splashed against her red jacket, and she looked around the room in horror. Another fan fell to the floor in ecstasy, but the crowd continued to push, trampling them underfoot without a second thought.

With a cry, her outfit and face now a sticky mess, Mink disappeared from view under the weight of the crowd, who continued to pile on, grunting and shuddering. Limbs intertwined as they lunged and thrust themselves into a tangled mass of bodies with their singular obsession trapped underneath, slowly drowning in their praise. I looked at my wife who downed her drink. I grabbed her hand and we headed for the door.

I could wikipedia it but it sounds like some celeb or something and I don't look most of those up either for the simple reason of that not knowing them causes them to be less famous, which theoretically reduces the amount of celebrities, which also solves the problem of not knowing them, in a way. AKA the "some problems really do go away if you ignore them" solution.

Plus, if "Hairspray" is really that comedy movie I'm thinking of ... well it was okay for a movie of that type, I guess but why should I care who directed it? (assuming he's the director) Same for "Serial Mom" isn't that another comedy movie? I don't know the other titles though.

I could wikipedia it but it sounds like some celeb or something and I don't look most of those up either for the simple reason of that not knowing them causes them to be less famous, which theoretically reduces the amount of celebrities, which also solves the problem of not knowing them, in a way. AKA the "some problems really do go away if you ignore them" solution.

Plus, if "Hairspray" is really that comedy movie I'm thinking of ... well it was okay for a movie of that type, I guess but why should I care who directed it? (assuming he's the director) Same for "Serial Mom" isn't that another comedy movie? I don't know the other titles though.

He's primarily a movie director of some note for his work with the gay/bi/lesbian/tranny set. He opened wide a world that audiences only saw in the darkest corners of society, and had hidden from in general. His work is pretty seminal in mainstreaming (to some extent) through comedy and a strange mixture of sadness and tragedy as well the lives and times of the fabulous.

He's an artist.

And "Hairspray" was a Broadway musical before they redone it as a movie.

Wettest month on record, or so they tell me. Dams are breaching, bridges are collapsing, cars are literally getting washed away, and the general attitude of people are getting surlier. Didn't matter though, because my band was heading into the studio to cut some tracks. I was kind of excited. It had been a while since I had the luxury of a single role in situations like this. Usually, since I was the "recording guy," it was up to me to set up the mics, get level checks, monitor the performance, and worry about playing it, too. It's kind of hard to get a decent take when you're not just concerned about what you're doing, but you have to keep an eye on everyone else. Just recording is fine, and just playing is fine, but when you have to do both at the same time, it get's kind of complicated.

The studio wasn't the best, but it was affordable, and in a dedicated space, not just a makeshift basement with mold creeping across the floor, or a rehearsal space where the noise of other bands constantly bled through the walls. It was located in a corner of an industrial park, next to a bus station; at least, that's what we were told over the phone, and I tried to make out the building numbers as my car's high beams fought their way through the pouring rain. There it was. I eased through a gate to get to the loading dock, and realized I was smack dab in the middle of a six-inch puddle. The sound guy came out, a hoodie pulled up over his head, and introduced himself as Ryan. He told me that, because of the rain, I needed to pull around to the side, and we'd load in through there. With a shrug, I drove over to where he was pointing, and began to pull my drums out of the trunk.

He led me through a small door, and down a makeshift zigzagging corridor consisting of a series of two-by-fours and plasterboard. This opened into a larger room, poorly lit, with trunks half open in the corner, and a few hastily built steps leading up to a riser at the far end, and another door. There was an old beat-up crib in the corner, and some other kid's toys scattered around. Ryan pointed me through the door, which turned out to be the studio proper. Four soundproofed rooms with glass walls, a 32-channel board, a rack of computer gear, and a cabinet full of microphones. I set up my drums in the largest of the rooms, and we got to work setting up mics.

The rest of the guys got there a half an hour later, and we made quick work of the basic tracks. Ryan knew what he was doing, and everything went smoothly. After a couple of hours, we were ready to start overdubs and vocals, which meant my job was pretty much done, save for offering advice and encouragement to the rest of the guys. I decided we'd be more comfortable and relaxed if we had something to eat, and maybe some beer, so I made my way out the back to see what I could rustle up.

There was a convenience store still open a block up, so I grabbed what I could, and headed back to the studio. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, so I made it back relatively unscathed. I got buzzed in through the side door and worked my way back through the corridor, and across the loft space, up the steps to the studio door, when I heard a sound behind me. I was pretty sure I had closed the side door firmly behind me, so I turned to see what it was. In the dim light, I saw a toddler crawling towards me. It was dressed in a dirty robe, or a pullover, or maybe just a sheet with a hole in it for the head. Then it stopped, and I saw one of the trunk's lids shift, and then another infant crawled out, dressed much in the same way. It started moving towards the first baby, a determined look on its face.

They were silent, not making a sound as they faced each other, getting closer, close enough they were almost touching. With a chuffing noise, one of them reached up and quickly stuck its fingers in the other's eye. With a choking cry, it fell back, and the first one moved over it, jabbing at its eye again. The tiny, chubby fingers shoved in deeper, and with a soft squishy pop, buried his hand up to the wrist in the other baby's skull. It let out a happy gurgle, and drove in deeper, half way up the forearm. It started crawling towards the decrepit crib, slowly dragging the wounded infant who was no longer moving on its own, smearing a trail of blood to mark its progress. It was then I noticed the crib wasn't empty, there was something else in it, something with eyes that glinted in the low light, and there were more eyes than there should have been. I quickly opened the studio door, and shut it behind me, hard.

"Hey, he brought beer! Awesome! Check it out; John just used his tuning pedal as a guitar slide. You've got to hear this."

Took the day off. It was an imperative, really. The sun had finally come out, and was burning away the emotional haze the rain had brought to the city. Honestly, there were songbirds outside my window this morning, and I had been able to leave it open overnight without fear of waking up with hypothermia. So it was only to be expected that I wasn't going to make it into work. Plus, an old friend had come in from out of town, so we made plans to meet in the arboretum.

I always like that place when the seasons are shifting around. I know that you're supposed to go there when things are in bloom, or for the special occasions like the when the cherry blossoms open up, or during the week or two when the tulips are going full bore. But I've always been partial to seeing the place during the in-between states, when you can see the layout of the land, and the skeletal structures behind all the flashy petals and leaves.

Today was one of the perfect times for me. The rains had led to massive flooding in town, and the arboretum also got its share. The topology was fairly mixed. One hill dominated the place, but there were rolling rises of land that dropped gently into shallow basins all around, and various footpaths crisscrossed the landscape, carefully planned to present the various plant species in their best light. The rain had changed the game however, because now some of those paths led straight into a foot of water, and with buds still forming, the trees in some of those valleys made the place look like a southern swamp. The illusion didn't last long, because if you turned around, you could see the pine trees and carefully constructed rose gardens.

I walked down the main avenue that split the arboretum in half and then circled up the main hill, mainly because it was paved. The other paths and walkways were simply well-worn dirt tracks that had mostly dried up by now, but were still a bit soft in one or two places, and I didn't want to risk it. Besides, those paths were in the trees, and I wanted to be out in the open, and feel the sun on my skin. A few others had the same idea. There were mothers pushing strollers, some college kids and a ubiquitous Frisbee, and—

"Well, you tell that bitch to get her ass in gear and do it right!" a gruff voiced barked behind me, and I turned to see a track-suited dictionary definition of "douchebag" jogging towards me. He was wearing pristine white running shoes, matching red velour pants and top, overly large sunglasses, and a Bluetooth Borg-like earpiece, into which he was shouting, oblivious of everything around him. "I don't care if her basement has a foot of water in it! She's in my office by ten, or she doesn't show up! …No, no, no. That is completely unacceptable! My demands are simple. Her entire existence revolves around me, or she's out on her ass. She's lucky I'm even giving her minimum wage. I bet I could get some illegal over here that would do it for a new pair of shoes!"

He brushed by me and turned off onto a side path that skirted one of the residual puddles/lakes that the rain had left behind, his voice still carrying through the air, cracking the idyll of the day. "Don't make me come down there and show you how to do your job, asshole! You're lucky that I – Oh, goddamn it!" Down the trail, his foot had hit a soft patch of mud, soiling his clean shoe. "Listen, I gotta call you back…" He lifted his leg, and some sort of slime dripped form his sneaker to the ground, like mucous. It was a greenish black, thick and nasty. He stepped back, trailing strands of the stuff as he started scraping his shoe against a large rock.

His back was to the water, which began to ripple and boil. From the water's edge, dozens of things started crawling out onto the bank. They looked like a frog mixed with a lizard, bulging eyes and a slick body, with a long tail and a gaping mouth filled with sharp teeth. They slithered and scrambled up the bank and towards the jogger, who was still dealing with the slime on his shoe. One of the frog things leapt onto the back of his right calf, digging the talons of its front legs into his leg, and taking a bite out of the back of his knee.

With a scream, he toppled over, just as the rest of the things pounced. They began to tear chunks out of him, swarming over the red velour track suit with their muddy, slimy bodies, biting indiscriminately wherever they could. His cries bubbled to a whisper as they bit into his face and throat, tearing off his nose and ripping out his esophagus. With several of them grabbing his shoulders in their wide mouths, they slowly began to pull his twitching body back into the pond, while a few of them kept skittering over his body, sinking their teeth into whatever soft parts they could find. A minute later, the body had been completely submerged, with nothing left but a trail of greenish-black slime, which would dry up in a day or two under the new season's sun. I checked my watch. I was going to be late meeting my friend. I had better get a move on.

As I entered the elevator to get up to my office this morning, I noticed Karen was wearing a pair of jeans, with a smug look on her face. She was talking to Betsy about how she donated five dollars to the Jimmy Fund, because the company was offering a deal where you could wear jeans if you did. I couldn't tell what she was more pleased with herself about: That she gave money to a charity, or that she was able to "break the rules" for a day. We have a pretty strict dress code for the office, straight up business attire, and business casual on Friday, which just means you don't have to wear a tie.

Not that Karen was actually breaking the rules, of course, because the company was allowing her to wear jeans, as either a bribe, or a thank you, depending on your perspective. The problem here though, was that Karen didn't really look good in jeans. Or at least what she was wearing wasn't the right cut for her. They were loose where they should be tight, tight where they should be loose, and the whole thing just looked… off.

I guess I've never been upset or daunted by the prospect of "dressing up". Not that I'm any stranger to jeans and a T-Shirt; that's my default look. But even when I was a little kid, I liked putting on a suit. It was like a costume, it made people look at you like a different person. Just by adding a sport jacket, or even a tie, people treated you differently. My dad used to say, "You can get in anywhere if you're wearing a tie," and he's mostly right. It's like a badge, or a signifier. You're "that kind of person".

Plus, as far as men's fashion goes, suits and dress shirts are pretty much the only easily available clothes that are actually made to fit you well. A decent suit can make you look ten pounds thinner, just by the way its cut. And contrary to popular belief, they're usually made to be comfortable. Anyone you see who complains about "dressing up" usually has made poor decisions while shopping. Either that or they're wrapped up in what a suit "means".

I get the feeling that some people rail against button-down shirts and ties out of some misplaced rebellion. They see "The Man" wearing a tie, being all business-y, and generally behaving like a douchebag, and they want to reject that. So, they wear $200 jeans with a hole in the knee, a "Smash the State" shirt that's a size too small, and they think they're making a statement. Or, they were forced to wear a uniform at school, and have associated the clothing with the experience, forever ruining the chances of enjoying a well-tailored suit.

Of course, you could also be like Jerry, who walked up to my desk just as I was putting my bag away. Jerry thought he understood the purpose of a suit, but he really didn't get it. If he were a sheriff in the Old West, he'd be the kind of guy who has a tin star far larger than it should be, and polished to a blinding shine. His clothes were expensive, but he didn't know how to wear them. The pants were a tasteful chalk stripe, but about two inches too short in the leg, and far too tight in the waist, which cinched in his ample gut. That in turn caused his French-cuffed salmon button down to balloon over his belt like he was smuggling a watermelon, which in turn made his tie end up only halfway down his torso—a tie that was, incidentally, wrapped around a collar that was throttling him and looking like a breaching dam of neck fat.

He stopped about five feet from my desk, looked at me, and said, "Nuh."

"What's that, Jerry?"

"Nuh." His face was ruddy and flushed. He hooked one finger under the knot of his tie, and pulled, causing the top button on his shirt to pop open. His eyes softened a bit. "Nuh."

"Jerry, you doing ok?" I took a step towards him, but he stepped back. With one hand occupied in getting his tie completely off, his other hand grabbed the front of his shirt, ripping it open. There was a "ping" as one of the buttons bounced off the copy machine. The skin under his shirt was pasty, undefined, and hairless. His gut rippled and hung over his pants, which he was now scrabbling at with clawed fingers, pushing them down his skinny legs. Unfortunately, he wasn't wearing underwear, and I caught a glimpse of his shriveled, limp penis as he ran past me, threw open the door to the main meeting room, and leapt on the table, howling.

One of the drawbacks to working in a large corporate structure is that every so often (once a quarter or so), you get herded into a large conference room, and some top-rung jackass blathers on about how we're all doing great jobs, even if he has no idea what it is we actually do, never mind whether or not we actually are doing a good job. For some reason, this ritual soothes the higher-ups, and makes them think that they are "connecting" with the cogs and pistons that grease the wheels on Industry.

They've gotten cleverer about it, too. Whereas they previously got hundreds of people into a lecture hall that was dim enough for those in the back to fiddle with their smartphones, today's meeting was just a few teams, maybe three dozen people, crammed into one of those modular team building mega-cubes, where the bigwig could see everyone, and it was much more difficult to feign paying attention while doing something else.

It turned out that today's diatribe was about Accomplishments and Goals. This consisted of a hyperactive, self-important, doughy man with a buzz haircut and steel-rimmed glasses telling the rest of us what we did last year, and what we're going to do next year. Big surprise, Jack: We were there. We know what we did, and we know how well we did. And unless you move the entire team to Manila, we know what we're doing next year. We don't need you to tell us that we've cut our cycle time by 200%, or that our Quality rating is at 97.3%. We're the ones who are doing that shit. If you want a suggestion, for free, why don't you skip blowing smoke up our asses and give us bonuses or raises? That would be a definite way of showing us how much you appreciate the work we've been doing.

Of course, in any of these forced gatherings, there's always one sycophantic twit who thinks that laughing too loudly at the VP's jokes and offering meaningless platitudes will get them "noticed", which is somehow a good thing. Her name was Debi. Did she think that Jack would suddenly say, "I like the way you cackled idiotically when I made a ham-handed reference to Mad Men! You're our new Director of Marketing!"? I mean, I understand being Teacher's Pet, I used to do it myself. But I at least was able to get better grades and learn more because of it. Debi was just… I dunno. Enthralled by the semblance of power? To dumb to know any better? I sighed, and looked around the room at the rest of the crowd.

Stephen was sitting next to me on my right. His eyes were half-glazed over, and he was slouching deeply in his chair. Every part of him seemed to sag. Then I glanced back at Brian, and his face literally was sagging. The skin was drooping off of his face like it wasn't connected to his cheekbones. In fact, it looked like his cheekbones had somehow collapsed. One of his hands slipped out of his lap, and flopped limply at his side, like glove filled with loose Jell-O. Next to him, Adriana's head slowly deflated and sunk down her neck, sliding down her chest. Looking to my left, I saw Jon, or what was left of Jon, melting into a flesh-colored heap in his chair, his legs dripping into his shoes. Patrick and Tina had simply become two flesh puddles spreading across the floor. You could see where their heads used to be from the patches of hair and the occasional wandering eyeball, which slowly blinked in time with Jack's ceaseless cadence. I glanced at the clock. "Just ten more minutes," I thought to myself, as I felt the bones in my shoulders soften.

That trite cliché was well served today, as it was not only raining, but my band had been asked to play on a local college radio station. Things had been falling into place recently, playing more shows, making new connections, and generally moving forward in a series of friends-who-know-friends, and sheer luck. It's hard to tell what sort of minor factors had to be aligned to get things to work right, especially when it's four mildly misanthropic guys in their mid-thirties like we are. Not that we were complaining, of course. We were playing another show tomorrow, and if being on the radio netted us even one more person at the door, the effort would be worth it.

I drove slowly through the campus, looking for the building that housed the radio station. I hadn't really been on a college campus in a long time—the first university I went to had a sprawling commons and took up most of the town, but I had dropped out after a year, and when I was ready to go back, I went to a college that was smack dab in the middle of the city, with no campus to speak of (or, as the propaganda went, "The whole city is your campus!"). So, it was a little odd to make my way through this fenced-off sanctuary of learning, with its manicured lawns and stately buildings arranged artfully across the grounds.

After asking a few kids who seemed surprised there was an "old guy with a moustache and a leather jacket" wandering around campus (amazingly, no one called security), I found the station. It was located at the end of a long corridor that was off of a sort of student union/mini-mall (since when was The Gap allowed to have stores on a college campus?), and there was no back way in. I realized with some dismay that I would have to carry my drums through the main building and down the hall. I reminded myself that this was for a good cause, and turned around to head back out to my car to start the process of hauling my gear down to the studio.

The corridor I walked back down had doors to classrooms along each side. They were typical classroom doors, solid panels of wood, with a slim rectangular window that was vertically above the doorknob. Since the radio show we were to be on had an evening time slot, the classrooms were dark, except one. I walked past it, and saw through the little window that there were about 20 or so students sitting at their desks, all sitting straight up at attention. I was about to keep walking, but I stopped in my tracks when I saw them move.

They were all moving in perfect synchronization, like puppets tied to the same strings. Their heads dropped to their chests, right arms moving from their laps to the surface of their desks, pens in hands, and taking notes in unison, then dropping their hands back into their laps, and sitting up straight again. Though the movements were made with military precision, they were dressed like any motley band of college kids: White baseball caps flipped around to the back, standard-issue grey hooded sweatshirts, loose shorts, Baja jackets, miniskirts, ripped jeans, pony tails, Caucasian dreadlocks, flip-flops, sneakers, combat boots. But they were all moving as one. I stepped closer to the door, looking to the front of the room.

Standing in front of a black board was a tall, thin man with a severe, drawn face, wearing a black suit and sunglasses. In his left hand he held a long wooden pointer. On the long desk in front of him there was a squat oblong metal box with a pane of glass on one side, which was facing the class. The man swatted the pointer at the blackboard just as the box gave of a flash of pale blue light. As if pushing a button, the students responded immediately. I squinted at what was written on the blackboard. In large letters, the thin wooden rod was pointed at the word, "OBEY." The stick smacked the blackboard again at the word underneath, along with another flash. "SUBMIT." Another flash, another smack, "ALLOW." And then repeat. "OBEY." Flash. "SUBMIT." Flash. "ALLOW." Flash.

In the back corner of the classroom, a young girl with jet-black hair and bangs slid off her chair and onto the floor. She began to twitch and jerk uncontrollably, while a thin film of white foam oozed from between her lips. The rest of the class ignored her, and continued moving in synch with each other, and with the flashing of the metal box. A voice from down the hall made me jump. "Can I help you?" It was a guy with a beard, looking in his late twenties.

"Uh, yeah. I'm here for the radio show?"

"Oh, yeah! We've been waiting for you. Here, I've got a wheeled pallet to help you get your stuff in. Shouldn't be a problem. You guys will be on in half an hour."

Spring fever is upon us. We have broken through the damp tedium of the rains, and the sun hammers in hard behind a cold front, dumping its golden rays onto the streets and hurling arrows of light against computer monitors, blinding all of us with the ricochet. As depressing as the rains were, the sunshine somehow seems just a tad bit cruel, especially when experienced through thick panes of glass while sitting in a grey fabric box.

Work never ceases however, and so the day dragged on the way that days do, days where there's always something else going on somewhere else, and you just can't reach it, but you could, if you had only five more minutes, if Bill would just return your phone call, if the damn copy machine weren't broken. Days when you're on the phone with the field office in Kansas, explaining for the umpteenth time that while you appreciate that the client is taking out a ten million dollar policy, that doesn't mean we can let him commit fraud while doing so, and your mind wanders off in mid sentence as you stare out the window at the emerald-blue skies and white cotton candy clouds.

There's no point in sitting at your desk when this kind of mood hits. You either have to find busywork that will take you around the building, or you go to lunch. At eight in the morning, no one's going to buy the lunch excuse, so I grabbed some old files that had been sitting in my desk from the pre-paperless office days, and scouted out the new long-term storage depository. Not that the office was entirely free of paper. As much as the corporate higher-ups want to save money on paper, everyone's desks had stacks of notes, files, printouts, and duplicates constructed into fortresses of information.

But paper costs weren't the only reason the Big Bosses wanted to keep everything electronic. It wasn't too hard to imagine that they had keyloggers and other bits of spyware on the company computers. The more aspects of the daily process that could be done on the networked machines, the more metrics they had to play with, and the more they could try to social engineer the plebes and squeeze more productivity out of them. Not to mention, they could keep tabs on who was slacking off. The problem of course was data overload. If they're really tracking all of these computers, there's no way any one person's behaviors will jump out, unless they're downloading child porn or something.

But since people are human, they are bound to do something not work related at some point in the day. So the data accumulates, until they decide to make cuts, and then they go look at one particular person's data record, and lo and behold, they logged onto Facebook. Just like a traffic cop has an entire stack of offences they can use that you've never even heard of until they want an excuse to pull you over, you data file is never looked at until they want to fire you for some reason. And the more electronic work you do, the larger your data file. So, perhaps without even consciously realizing it, people around the office still do at least a third of their work on paper, just to escape the digital shackles.

I turned a corner, the paper files weighing down my arms, looking for the room where we can drop off old files. For some reason, it changed every few months. Probably because no one wanted the job of alphabetizing and packing up the reams of paper. It used to be in the Southwest corner, so I headed that way. Maybe it was still there, or at least someone over there might know where it moved to. Because of all the personal information and social security numbers, the door down at that end was electronically locked. I balanced the files on my left forearm while groping for my ID with my right. As I held up the card to the lock, it flashed green. Maybe I was in luck; maybe the depository was still here and hadn't moved yet. I stepped into the room, hoping to see stacks of cardboard boxes.

The room was bare, almost. There was a large table in the center, and standing on either side was a man in a dark, navy suit. Only, they had heads like frogs, with long, pink tongues drooping from their mouths. Their eyes bugged out darkly from the flat, bumpy, green skin, and air pockets bulged obscenely behind where their ears should have been. They were focused on what was lying on the table before them. It was a young girl, completely naked and still. She had brown hair, slightly curly, which was spread out behind her as she lay on the table. I couldn't tell if she was alive. The thing on the right extended its tongue, and, starting at her feet, licked up the inside of her leg. She twitched, and I knew she could feel everything. The tongue moved higher up her thigh, and she made a low noise, disgusted with what was happening to her. The thing on the left lowered its head, and began lapping at her small breasts. She began to whine, as if in pain, and I saw blood begin to bead on her calf where the tongue had dragged up her skin. It looked as if she had fallen off a bike and gotten a bad case of road rash. The skin was scraped and torn.

More scrapes from the creature's tongues crisscrossed her breasts now, and a thin stream of blood made a rivulet down her stomach, pooling in her belly button. She was groaning louder now, and the thing on the right put one large, slimy hand over her mouth, muffling her cries. With a decisive grunt, the thing on the right shoved his tongue between her thighs. She shrieked beneath his hand, and her whole body convulsed while the tongue flopped and strained inside her. The thing on the left leaned down ever further, and, grinning with all-too-human teeth, savagely bit down on her breast, digging in and tearing at it, and finally ripping a large hunk of skin and flesh. They both started grunting and hooting as the girl stopped struggling, her legs splayed grotesquely as they began exploring her body more thoroughly. In retrospect, maybe it would have been better to find an excuse to go to lunch, instead.

We got a call from a friend who lives outside the city. She had moved about 45 minutes south because she got a new job, gotten a really nice place to stay, and discovered there's not much to do out there. But there are at least one or two nice restaurants out there, so we decided to meet her at one of them and grab some dinner.

It seems there's still a difference between time and space, at least when it comes to driving. In the city, going from the Boston side to the Cambridge side across the river (a distance of about 4 miles) can take half an hour, maybe even longer if the traffic is bad. But for some reason, spending the same amount of time but going five times further seems like such an effort. Same car, same stereo, same length of time. So what's the difference?

We found the restaurant easily enough, and it was surprisingly elegant, even if the hipness level was a year or so out of date. It's not like I'm overly concerned with that, it just had a slightly stale feeling, no matter how sharp the deco angles were, or how brightly the chrome gleamed under tiny halogen drop lights. But the drinks were made well, and you could see directly into the kitchen, which had a wood-fire grill that would flare up occasionally as a steak was flipped.

My friend was already sitting at the corner of the bar, sipping on a glass of wine. We grabbed seats on either side of her, framing a triangle, and after a quick drink order, fell to talking. Nothing too heavy, just catching up with what was happening in our lives, jobs, bands, all that. The conversation took the usual twists and turns it always does when friends who have known each other for a while get together; all the parts interconnected and flowing together, without a need for excessive context or exposition, wending its way from one topic to another, and almost never without a smile on someone's face.

The conversation turned to shoes, which could be considered inevitable. And while I consider myself enlightened enough to watch Project Runway and appreciate the fashions, sometimes I get lost in the technical details. But that was ok, too. The conversation would shift soon enough, and I might learn something. I let my eyes drift over the bar, at the other patrons. Middle aged, on average; this wasn't a college bar by any means. They were all dressed up, or at least were taking more effort than jeans and a T-shirt. The bar section had filled up quite a bit since we had gotten there, and the volume of conversation had built up as well.

A shrill laugh pealed out from the other end of the bar. I looked over and in the dim light, I saw three women hunched over martini glasses filled with something pink, and garnished with some garishly sliced fruit. In the middle was a woman in her early thirties, grey blouse and light brown hair, cut short. Wire framed glasses sat on her pinched, slightly worried face and she looked down into her drink. On either side of her was an older woman, each in their late fifities, at the least. The one on the left had a black dress with clearly outdated shoulder pads, and a gleaming white pearl necklace. The one on the right had a blouse of deep red, and had her hair pinned back in a tight bun. They were the ones laughing, and I started to notice that there was a cruel edge to it. The woman in black leaned in to say something to mousy woman, who flinched at her words as the woman in red threw her head back with mirth.

Then she leaned in as well, and lifted her hand to make a gesture. Her nails were as red as her shirt, and were very well-kept. The nails were at least an inch long, and tapered into an elegant point that had probably never seen a minute's worth of labor. As she continued talking, she jabbed her index finger at the grey woman's face as if stressing a point. The nail sunk into her cheek easily, and a chunk tore away as the woman in red curled her finger back.

The young woman jerked her head back, as the woman on the left clutched her shoulder. Her nails were painted a dark purple, almost as black as her dress, and they were just as sharp as her companions, digging in to the flesh between her neck and shoulder, just above the collarbone. A thin rivulet of blood dripped down the front of the young woman's grey blouse, and her face screwed up in a look of agony and shame. Again, a red fingernail dug into her cheek, this time carving a line from the corner of her eye to her jaw. Her head jerked back, pulled by dark fingers, and her soft neck glowed pale under the cold light of the bar.

The older women looked at each other, and with their palms facing out, jammed their fingers into either side of the grey woman's neck. Their fingers sunk in to the second knuckle, and then curled them into claws and pulled. The young woman's throat exploded in a shower of blood and gristle as a thick wad of flesh thumped against the bar. The women howled with laughter and raised their martini glasses in a toast, as blood spattered onto their faces and clothes. The young woman slumped in her seat as the maître d’ approached us, announcing that our table was ready and if we would just follow him, please.

Mottled light from the setting sun scatters through the trees by the side of the road.Struck by blight, no leaves, just sharp points jutting in odd directions.At this speed, the guardrail becomes a floating grey bar, a thin barrier between the pavement and the forest. A caller on NPR is reciting a list of economic complaints in a high-pitched whine. I recline in the passenger's seat, head lolled over to one side. Watching the blur.

Movement.

Just beyond the treeline, something large. Something running. Too big to be human. Plus, it has long, curving horns. How many legs is it running on? Two.

Something's burning.

Turning my head to look back. Behind us, a fading crescent glow of the setting sun merges with angry orange flames deep in the woods. A plume of thick black smoke reaches towards wispy cirrus clouds settling in the evening sky. A fireball blossoms just above the tree tops, but the car's thick insulation and the dull hum of the road muffles any sound.

Ahead of us, the forest opens up onto a beaver-built reservoir, the water's edge encroaching the trees with every season. Stumps thrust through the surface mark the wood's defeat. The beast is still running, is running out of cover. Is running towards the road. Breaks through the trees. Can only catch a glimpse as the car hurtles by through the fading light. Large arms. Talons. Horns. Eyes like the inferno raging behind us. Leaps into the road with a ferocious grace.

Leaps into the path of a pickup truck.

Twisting my body around in the seat, the creature's body explodes into wet pieces, a hooked claw spinning through the air, a shard of shattered horn tumbling along the blacktop. Its misshapen head tears loose from the body and bounces off the hood of the truck, which has crumpled like an old cardboard box. The pickup fishtails; driver's face a white mask of panic underneath blue Red Sox cap; tires catch, and truck begins to roll. Flips, and crushes the roof before bouncing into the culvert for the reservoir. The fire is spreading, and chaotic flames are illuminating large, dark shapes advancing through the woods.

Coffee. They offer it for free in the break room. Gotta keep the drones awake and jittery. Gotta keep them anxious. If you feed their addiction to caffeine, you'll feed their addiction to work. Can't let it slip.

Phone call. The home office in Michigan needs special help. Could we make an exception? It's probably fraud, but this is a really big case, and they don't want to lose it. No, you have to get it signed by the client. Nothing I can do. Yeah, we'll take a fax.

The fluorescent lights in the department are flickering. Pretty badly. You can really start noticing the shadows that they create. Normally, they're hidden or obscured by the multiple light sources, but when they're flashing like this, the shadows really stand out. The computer monitor acts like an anti-strobe, bright when the lights flicker off, and then overpowered when they come back on.

There's a maintenance crew here now, they're on the other end of the cubicle field, and have set up an A-frame ladder. They've removed some panels from the drop ceiling, and seem to be pulling wires and cables out. Some of them look chewed. The charred body of a rat falls from the hole, and lands with a heavy thump on Jessica's desk. Good thing she's at lunch right now.

The digital clock flashes to the magical number. Stow the coffee mug in the drawer, pull the jacket off the hook, shuffle to the elevator. Don't make eye contact. Yawn. Think of the couch. Think of the last beer in the fridge. Think about what's on TV. Don't think about doing this all over again tomorrow.

That was incredible. My first impression of the numbers and names acting as your work juxtaposed against your thoughts was pretty positive. Once they started changing the effect was your thoughts bleeding into your work, becoming too overwhelming to maintain control over. I could picture a spreadsheet where halfway down an office worker started actually inputting those words as names. I can even see the next step, imagining the reactions of higher ups who notice the mistake. The meetings and the severe terror of the person who did it when they realize what they'd done.

I'm not sure if that was your intention, but it worked powerfully well. This is among the best ones yet.

At first I was just skipping them, and then I caught "Horrour" in the corner of my eye and thought "did he do that on purpose? is he copying the names from somewhere or just making them up?" and then when I got to the end I noticed and had to backtrack a little to catch all the things.

I think I like this one best so far, maybe. Though some of the earlier ones I cannot quite remember anymore.

I was asked to meet some friends after practice last night. A few drinks, a few laughs, some cattiness, and a thudding metronome of a kick drum. Old friends, from the old days. Days when a young man could dress foolishly, drink all night, and manage to live on 26 hours of sleep a week. Days before the rise of the New Puritanism – when there were places in this city that were magnets for people looking for something different. When goths, punks, rivetheads, queens and twinks all flocked to the same place, and were happy rubbing shoulders and calling that place home.

That place is long gone now, and when the wrecking ball came through those walls, most of the crowd scattered throughout the city, ending up as little clumps of subgenre clinging to niches in the sidewalk and errant club nights usually listed as "throwback" shows. Decentralized, it became easier for some nebulous Them to slowly squeeze out the kinds of Fun typically considered "wrong". Clubs fell like dominoes, to be replaced by condos and second-rate wine bars that spun the kind of techno you hear when shopping in department stores trying to sound hip. Economically, small groups of 15-20 scattered through the city didn't have as much clout as several hundred all heading to the same event. As a result, the oppressive Average stepped in to fill the spaces that the Interesting minority used to inhabit.

Some of us stuck together, though. An odd bunch when taken individually, but our friendships were forged in an odd time and in an odd place. But it worked, for a very obvious reason: it was built on honesty. That place we met was where we didn't have to be shy about our quirks or eccentricities; it was a place that played Big Black and Dee-Lite back to back; it was a place where being yourself was the order of the day; and a place where you just couldn't take yourself too seriously. In a way, it was that last point that made the whole thing work. If you start treating things in a serious way, all the little primate territorial games come creeping though the door. And then people start splitting up into little tribes based on similarities. I suppose we were all fortunate enough to have found the right place at the right time to avoid some of that.

In any case, we drank vodka and talked about our lives, updating the narrative and reminiscing about the past. Last call came too quickly, but we all settled up and made our way out into the chilly night. I was a little buzzed walking to the subway, but by no means unsteady, when I stumbled, and felt a sharp pain in my ankle. Damn. It had been a while since that had happened. I cursed my aging, beat-up body, remembering a time when I could dance for hours without stopping, and looked down at my feet. Jammed into my ankle, just behind my Achilles tendon, was a large fishhook, about four inches long and attached to a line that was trailing behind me. I turned, and down on the far corner of the street was a man with a long, black coat. His face was hidden by a fedora, but the round lenses of a pair of glasses flashed under the streetlight. In his hands, he held a surf casting rod. His hands twitched, and a flash of pain blossomed in my foot. Slowly, he began to walk towards me, patiently reeling in the line. As he stepped out of the reach of the streetlight, he slipped from sight like a fish diving below the surface of a quiet pond, only to re-emerge a moment later in the glow of a neon bar sign, or the glare of a passing car's headlights.

Wincing at the pain, I crouched down on one knee, and began trying to work the fishhook out of my ankle. The barb had done its work well, and I could feel it tearing at the tendons in my foot as I frantically worked it out of my flesh. I glanced back, and he had already halfway down the sidewalk. I could make out a glittering smile beneath his glasses, and I really didn't want to find out what his teeth were made of. With an effort, I tore the last inch of the hook from my foot and leapt up, only to stagger into a parking meter when I tried to put any weight on my injured leg. I heard a grunt behind me, and the zipping, metallic sound of a reel being wound up quickly. Gritting my teeth, I lurched towards the subway entrance, and hobbled down the steps toward the turnstile. I've never been happier when I heard the garbled speaker announce, "The last train to Forest Hills is now arriving." The right place at the right time, once again.

The morning sun was bright, but the air was bitter, and carried a chill like the winter hadn't decided to let go yet. As I locked the front door behind me and walked down the front steps, a gust of wind snatched a page of coupons from an abandoned newspaper, and kicked it down the street. Tiring of that game, the gust slapped at my face for a while, whispering hints of months-old snows. I pulled my leather blazer tighter around me, turned up the collar, and tried my best to ignore it.

As I cut through the small playground/park on the way to catch my train, I heard a dog barking once, twice. Looking to my left, a young Boxer trotted from behind a laurel bush, saw me, and stopped. He tensed up for a moment growled softly, then leapt in the opposite direction and sprinted away as a bright orange tennis ball sailed over his head and bounced off the fence that marked the boundary between the park and the street. I turned my head to the right, and saw a woman holding a steaming travel mug, with a leash draped across her forearm. I gave her a small wave, and kept walking.

Stepping through the turnstile at the subway, a speaker overhead blared out an announcement that my train was arriving. Kind of redundant, because the way the platform is set up, you can see about a half mile down the tracks, and the fact a train is approaching becomes obvious. Looked like it was going to be a full one today. No holidays, no vacations, so station was filled with kids going to school, and office workers going to their nine-to-fivers.

The train pulled up, the doors opened, and we all filed in. The usual games began, as people tried to balance their desire to be isolated with the possibility of squeezing into an empty seat between two other people who didn't really want anyone sitting in the open space. Mumbled apologies and grumbled acceptances followed, along with some shuffling and adjustments of briefcases and backpacks. The rest of us preferred to stand, holding tight to the rails, straps, and other solid pieces as the train swayed and jolted us towards the day's tasks.

The elevator's doors slid shut, and their highly polish surfaces reflected back a homogeneous group staring back: Starched shirts, light blue or ivory; demure necktie; shoulder bags instead of briefcases; pinstriped trousers; shiny black shoes; cup of coffee in hand; tired, apathetic gazes. They slid open again, revealing the beige welcome of our floor. A short walk to my desk, and the morning ritual begins. Murmur tentative "good mornings" to people you don't know, turn on the computer, change the message on your outgoing voicemail, launch and log into the various programs that will tell you what to do today, and how to do it. A long pull of coffee, and then you're into it.

A few hours later, I looked up from my computer screen, distracted by the changing light. Clouds had rolled in, obscuring the harsh sunlight and muting the glare that was bouncing off the filing cabinet. I stood and stretched, my legs and knees protesting the movement. I grabbed my coffee mug, and headed to the break room to load up on more free caffeine. The stuff wasn't as good as what you could get… almost anywhere else, but it was close, it was free, and it was something to do other than stare at numbers for awhile. The brown liquid spat and hissed into my mug, which I tried to doctor with sugar and milk, and then it was back to my desk to work and wait until the golden hour.

New cases happened. Meetings happened. Old cases needing troubleshooting happened. Meetings about troubleshooting old cases happened. Then more new cases happened. On the other side of the cubicle field, a tinny radio was tuned to sports talk radio; someone was listing off statistics that apparently meant something. Took a few phone calls, put out some fires, and finally I was able to set my out of office voicemail, and shut down the computer. The screen went dark, but there were still afterimages floating in front of my eyes. I shook my head heavily, grabbed my bag, and headed down to the street.

My feet hit the sidewalk just as the first drops of rain began to fall. The air was still warm and thick with humidity, so the fat falling globules were somewhat of a relief as they splashed on my face and head. It was smack dab in the middle of the evening rush, and the streets were filled with cars and pedestrians pushing to get back to their apartments and their houses, to curl up with a microwave dinner and cheap boxed wine, or maybe ordering Chinese, or perhaps even forgoing food altogether and just drinking themselves to sleep.

The rest of the pedestrians and I filed through the gaping arches of the subway entrance and towards the gates, where we presented our RFID infested cards to the electronic guardian that controlled the panes of bulletproof plastic sliding back which allowed us to keep moving forward, down the stairs and onto the platform. We milled and jostled for position, betting on where the doors would be when the train finally rolled up. A distant screech of metal on metal signaled its imminent arrival. Adjustments were made as the cars ground to a halt, and then we grudgingly stood aside as the passengers pushed their way out through the doors and shouldered through the crowd. Feet shuffled as we packed ourselves in, and then, with a sing-song chime, the doors closed, and we were on our way.

After twenty minutes of face-to-armpit crowding, the train finally arrived at my stop. I wormed my way through the door and into the warm rain that was still coming down. I pulled my jacket tighter around me and walked out the front of the station, for the final walk home. Through some far-off decision process, the sidewalk in front of the station was laid with red brick, perhaps as a nod to some aesthetic principle. Unfortunately, that principle didn't extend to quality of work, so the bricks were uneven and had a tendency to reach up and grab your shoe. What this means is that I was busy scanning the ground for treacherous construction, and didn't see the woman on the other side of the street until I was at the curb.

She was barefoot, and wearing some intricately wrapped white linen robe, or a modified sari. The wind picked up, and her long red hair whipped off to one side. She was staring straight at me, and took a step off the curb, crossing straight into traffic. A car screeched to a halt about a yard away from her, the old man behind the wheel cursing and flipping her off. She paid no mind, and kept her steady, insistent pace towards me. I could see her eyes more clearly now. They were a cold blue, shot through with fine red blood vessels. They contained worlds. As she stared at me, coming closer, I could see storms behind her eyes. Howling animals. Screaming children. They had the vision of madness, focused, unwavering. She radiated a terrifying confidence; I was paralyzed under the intensity of her gaze.

Rain splashed against my face as I stood transfixed. She was two feet away. She stepped closer. Ten inches. She leaned in, closer. Her lips touched my ear, and she spoke.

"Boo."

Without another word, she sprinted off down the brick sidewalk, and around the corner, disappearing from view.

Day 30:[snip - more glorious stuff]Rain splashed against my face as I stood transfixed. She was two feet away. She stepped closer. Ten inches. She leaned in, closer. Her lips touched my ear, and she spoke.

"Boo."

Without another word, she sprinted off down the brick sidewalk, and around the corner, disappearing from view.

I really enjoy having an alarm clock that can play my iPod. I even set the alarm early so I can lie in bed for a few minutes, listening to what random selection pops up as I slowly stretch my limbs out and rub the sleep from my eyes. From there, it's back into the routine: Grabbin' juice, grabbin' pills; kick the coffee machine into gear; check the RSS feeds for a few minutes; shower; shave; dress; grab the coffee mug, and head out the door.

There have been debates about this, but I kind of prefer the morning commute over the evening one. While it's true that it signals the beginning of enforced employment, the final confirmation of a guaranteed eight hours devoted to tanning beneath the fluorescence, it's also true that the people are more docile. I know, it can be creepy to see them lined up on the train platform, half-awake, their near-dead eyes only registering shapes and movement. I wonder what goes on behind their eyes as they lockstep their way off to work. Maybe they're thinking of what the left behind. Maybe it's what they're working towards. Maybe they're realizing that what they're working towards doesn't actually exist. Who knows? Maybe they’re just thinking about their next cup of coffee. To be honest, I don't really care. They're sluggish, predictable. They stay out of my way, and I theirs, and everyone's happy. Well, maybe not happy, but at least they're not bothering me.

The doors opened at my stop, and I joined my fellow commuters through the grey, high-vaulted station and through the revolving doors leading out into the Financial District. A few rays of sun had broken though a uniformly dismal fleet of overcast clouds, casting odd patterns of light on the exposed brick of the station walls before disappearing back into the gloom. No one noticed, their eyes were all tilted down slightly towards the sidewalk, cajoling their feet to bring them to the office for one more day, one more week, a decade, just until retirement.

As predictable as the morning commuters are, so are the panhandlers. There's usually one or two down the block from the subway exit; I can't tell if there's a pattern or a hierarchy or a rotating schedule at some main headquarters somewhere, but a few regulars frequent the area, never at the same time, never on the same day. They each have their own style, from "spareadollarforahomelessveteran" to "pleasehelpgodbless" to a sign, a cup, and a look of tentative anticipation.

Ok, so now the uncomfortable revelation: I rarely give any change to them. I tell myself it's because I don't actually have any on me, which is usually true. But I know they're going to be there, so it's not like I can't plan ahead. There are about a dozen more excuses and rationalizations I tell myself, trying to assuage the pangs of guilt walking by them. Usually, they work. So, when I spotted an old man in a tattered wool coat standing slightly hunched at the mouth of public access alley 503, I mentally pulled my "don't bother me" coat a little tighter around myself.

The parts of his face I could see were weathered, lined with wrinkles, and perhaps an old scar. The rest was taken up by a long grey beard, tangled and slightly greasy. He had a knit cap on his head, slightly askew with the words "HONK IF YOU'RE HORNY!" written across it, and a pair of frayed pant legs jutted from beneath his coat, ending in battered Avila sneakers. Even from down the street, I could see he was having trouble standing. He swayed from side to side, occasionally shifting his feet to keep balance. I wasn't sure if he was drunk or sick, but it was probably both. I knew I was going to have to walk past him to get to my office, though for a second I wondered how rude it would be to cross the street so he wouldn't be able to speak to me. Turns out, that wasn't necessary.

His knee buckled, and pitched him to the sidewalk. The coat he was wearing fluttered around him, and settled over his body like a shroud. I cursed under my breath, and chided myself for being an asshole as I stepped up my pace and headed towards the heap lying on the concrete. I fumbled for my cell phone, unsure of what to do. Call 911 and say, "Some homeless man just collapsed on the street. What? Yes, I'll hold." Dial the operator and ask for the nearest homeless shelter? Call a cab? But then the thoughts I was juggling in my head came crashing down to shatter on the pavement as I saw some huge insectoid leg reach out of the alleyway. It had to have been six or seven feet long. It arced up and out from some (thankfully) unseen body, and ended in a small point that jabbed into the huddled shape on the sidewalk. A bright patch of red bloomed on the grey wool of his coat as the monstrous leg began to drag the body into the alley. I froze, watching in horror as businessmen, lawyers, accountants, MBAs and CPAs all walked past, oblivious to what was happening right in front of them. The man's body disappeared into the alleyway, and I tentatively walked to the corner, and looked down the narrow gap between the buildings. Nothing there but a streak of blood, and a knit cap that was still giving me instructions of what I should do if I'm ever horny.